Pretty Boy
by nwtp-dreamer
Summary: Ponies on Earth fic. Olly is just an average teenager who just happens to live in a not-so-great neighborhood. Because of his feminine looks and high-pitched voice, he's an easy target for the other guys. But when Olly stumbles upon a certain group of girls, he will watch as their lives change forever, along with his own.
1. Chapter 1

I stared down at my shoes as I trudged along the dark, dirty sidewalk. One strap of my dark green backpack was slung over my shoulder. I looked up at the sky; the clouds were slowly turning dark. Rain. I growled as I looked at my surroundings; still half a mile to go.

It was late February, and the ground was muddy and soft from the recently melted snow. Come to think of it, I couldn't remember the last time it had normally rained. It was a bit relieving, since that meant the weather was warming up, but also extremely inconvenient. My dad was an engineer, and I respected one at that. The problem was that it required him to go on a TON of business trips for unpredictable amounts of time. Sometimes he was home in two days, sometimes two months. My mom always tags along with him, and when I was little, I did as well. But school had gotten harder and my schedule wasn't as flexible, so nowadays I would stay home by myself.

It usually wasn't so bad; I could take care of myself just fine, it just got a little lonely at times. Today, though, it sucked. The reason? I can't drive yet. So here I was, walking home from the bus stop four miles from my house.

I neared my neighborhood and shuttered, trying to think through my situation. It was still quite a walk to my house and it was about to rain. There was a shortcut… but…

I sighed and took the shortcut. I needed to get home as soon as possible. I knew it was a terrible idea, but I was sure I could manage. It wasn't the first time.

"Hey! Pretty boy!" I heard a voice yell from a distance. I knew this was a terrible idea.

I took off running. There aren't too many places to hide in my neighborhood other than behind houses, so I would just have to keep running. I looked back to see three boys running after me, and one slowly catching up on a bike. I panicked and ran faster.

"Don't let him go in the woods!" I heard a boy yell, "Cut him off!"

I smiled. The woods were perfect. If I could just outrun them enough to get into the woods, it would be a thousand times harder for them to come after me. I looked back; the kid on his bike was quickly advancing forward. With a spur of adrenaline, I pushed forward faster, sloppily jumping over a log and into the woods.

"You can't hide, pretty boy!" I heard a deeper voice yell. He was the oldest of the boys on the street. I sighed and ran forward into the woods until I was met with relative silence.

I leaned back against a tree. Going through that side of the neighborhood was never a good idea. It wasn't as if those guys targeted me, they honestly would go after any kid who walked by. It was just easier for them to mess with me. I pulled out my cell phone and looked at my reflection. My freckled cheeks were bright pink from exhaustion and my bleached blonde hair was damp.

It was easy to target me because I was known to be a bit feminine. The thought angered me to no end, but I would never admit that. I was short, about 5'3". My eyes were extremely large and hazel colored. When I was younger, those guys used to call me 'bug eyes'. The nickname had faded into history as I got older, but I almost preferred it to what they called me now.

"Excuse me… um… Pretty boy?" I heard a soft, female voice ask from behind me.

I turned in panic to see a girl staring down at me. I ran. I didn't even bother trying to think through what was going on. That nickname meant trouble, no matter who she was. I couldn't take any chances.

"Wait!" she yelled and began to run after me.

I turned to see not only her, but another girl running beside her in attempt to catch up with me. I turned to my side to see another running toward me at my left. I cursed under my breath and took off to my right.

"Please! Wait up!" I heard the voice yell again.

I closed my eyes and continued running forward, trying to speed up my pace. This was defiantly the strangest situation I'd ever been in. I had no idea who this girl was, and now suddenly she was chasing after me along with two others.

Suddenly I ran into something. I looked up to see yet another girl blocking my path. I quickly turned to run in the other direction, but the two girls chasing me were now closing in. I turned the other way to see the third girl closing in as well. In one last desperate attempt, I ran in the last direction I could think of. From there, a girl aggressively grabbed my shoulders. I backed away from her; I was trapped.

"Please," the girl started again, "Please… we just…"

"This is priceless!" I heard a low voice laugh. The guys had found me.

"I've never seen these girls around before," one mumbled, but then began to smirk, "They don't even know you and their already after you, Pretty boy! Man, you must just be disgusting."

"We don't…" one of the girls started. She was quickly cut off by the tallest boy ramming through them and pinning me to the ground.

"Take his bag!" One of the boys shouted. From there, my backpack was ripped off of me and emptied into a nearby puddle. I tried to squirm my way free, but the boy on top of my spit on my face and then shoved my head into the muddy ground.

"Cry, Pretty boy!" he shouted as he slapped me across the face, "Cry, Sissy!"

I looked up to see that all the girls had disappeared out of sight. I scowled, but was then met with another slap to the face. My attention back to the boy on top of me, I felt cold mud shoved in my ears and my lower torso being kicked by the others.

"Don't like getting dirty? Don't wanna mess up your hair?" the boy spat in my face again. He grabbed a handful of mud and spread it in my hair as if it were shampoo. He then spread it down my face and into my mouth.

"You stink, pretty boy," he laughed suddenly, "You could use a bath."

He then proceeded to forcefully pull me off the ground. My legs were weak from all the kicking, and I nearly stumbled forward. He used this to his advantage and pushed me forward into the puddle my bag had been emptied into.

"Smell you later!" the boy finally said as he threw an old slush-ball at the back of my neck. I felt the cold, dirty slush leak into my shirt and shivered, but didn't move otherwise. Once I was met with silence again, I sat up and spat out the leftover mud that lingered on my tongue.

I looked around; my books were all over the place and soaked beyond repair. I sighed and gathered them all up into my bag again, thinking about how much faster and easier it could've been if I hadn't taken the shortcut. I stood up along with my bag and began walking out of the woods.

"…Pretty boy?" I heard a familiar female voice call.

I groaned, "What! What do you want from me?"

I watched as all five stepped out from behind the trees, followed closely by a sixth. We all stared at each other for a while. It was irritating.

"Well?" I asked bitterly, "I'm not resisting. Come at me, I've got time for another round."

"Pretty boy… we don't,"

"YOUR HAIR!" one of them shouted suddenly. I staggered back as one of them came hurdling at me, grabbing me with sheer force. I fell backwards, and I head smacked against a fallen log. Her face became a blur, and slowly faded into blackness. I cursed as I felt myself losing consciousness. Great.

"We don't even know where he lives," I heard a panicked voice mutter. I was coming to.

"I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't live anywhere, the way those others were treating him," I heard another say with worry.

I opened my eyes a bit to see a head looming over me, but looking off in another direction. My head was in the girl's lap. I stared, this was the first time I had really gotten the chance to look at her. The girl's hair was dark purple and had an elegant wave to it. I glanced over to where the others were. They were all wearing bright, silk dresses. Almost like nightgowns.

"Why were you so desperate to talk to him anyway, Twilight?" a blonde haired one asked the girl who I originally ran into, who also had dark purple hair but with a pink and dark blue streak.

Twilight…

"I thought he could tell us about where we are… and rather, what we are…" 'Twilight' stumbled on her words, obviously still surprised about what had happened.

"That… poor little thing," a light pink-haired girl whined.

"It's okay, Fluttershy," the blonde haired one sighed, "He's going to be fine."

Fluttershy…?

My eyes opened a little wider as I took another good look at the six girls. Something about that name sounded… really familiar.

"You don't know that, Applejack!" the rainbow-haired one shouted, "I mean… he hit his head pretty hard."

My eyes widened in shock as I heard that last name. Applejack… Oh… my…

"P-pretty boy?" the girl holding my head asked suddenly. She was looking down at me in shock.

I quickly rolled out of her lap and got on my feet. I stared aggressively at them for a minute, until I started to lose my balance. I clenched my head and desperately reached out for something to hold on to.

"P-please… please be careful, Pretty boy," 'Fluttershy' said softly, "D-don't push yourself too fast."

I growled and backed away from them, "That's…" I sighed, "My name isn't Pretty boy."

"Then why were those guys…" the rainbow- haired one started to ask.

"It's an insult," I solemnly explained, "They call me that because they think I look like a girl."

"Oh… I-I'm sorry," 'Fluttershy' mumbled.

"What is your name, then?" 'Twilight' asked curiously.

I hesitated, not sure if I wanted to tell them just yet. But if I didn't then they would probably keep calling me that stupid name.

"Olly," I sighed, "Just… call me Olly."

"That's it?" the blonde-haired one raised an eyebrow, "Just Olly?"

"Yea…" I replied awkwardly, "Just Olly."

"Oh well… I'm Twilight Sparkle," Twilight introduced herself, "And this is Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie."

Oh… my…

"Those are… interesting names," I muttered.

"Are you alright?" Rarity asked.

I snapped my head toward her and regained my cool, "Yea, yea I'm fine."

"Are you sure?" Applejack asked, "You hit your head pretty hard there…"

"Y-yea, I'm fine…"

"…May I see?" Fluttershy asked.

"What?"

"Can… can I see where you hit your head…? If-if that's okay…"

I hesitated, but before I could say anything, Fluttershy cautiously walked up behind me and softly tried to inspect the wound. I gasped and pulled away from her.

"P… Olly," she gasped, "That bump…"

"I'm fine, can't even feel it," I replied quickly and coolly.

"Olly," Twilight started, "We wanted to talk to you because… well we need some help."

I sat back onto the log I had hit my head on and attempted to wipe some of the mud off of my cheeks, "Help, huh? What kind of help?"

"It's… actually a bit complicated," she continued, "Maybe we could go somewhere more comfortable for you? It might be a lot to take in…"

I raised an eyebrow. Obviously I knew exactly what she was going to try to tell me, as I had been a fan of MLP since the second season. But I wasn't exactly sure how I was supposed to tell them that they were the stars of a children's television show…

"I… guess we could go to my house…" I pondered.

"We don't mean to be a bother," Rarity cut in, "We just need a few questions answered, and we'll be out of your hair."

I thought for a minute. These girls were from a completely different dimension as far as I knew. They would come over and ask about this world and who they were… and then what? I kick them out? I shook my head, I wasn't THAT cruel.

"Nah, don't worry about it," I finally concluded, "There's no rush. Stay for dinner if you want."

"Really? Oh wow you're so super nice!" Pinkie Pie shouted, who strangely had been relatively quiet up to this point.

"Well, we better get going then," I stood up with a new burst of confidence, "On the way here it looked like it was going to rain soon."

"What about those other guys?" Applejack perked up.

I stopped in my tracks, "They… they shouldn't bother us again. They already did once today… they're probably after some other kid right now anyway…"

"Something tells me you're not so sure…" Twilight walked in front of me questionably, "Why did they attack you in the first place?"

I cringed, "A story for another time. Come on, we gotta get home."

A couple of them looked at me skeptically for a second, but then decided to drop the topic and follow after me, much to my relief. Thanks to the shortcut, we were able to make it back to my house in under ten minutes. Some of the girls stood agape; my house was two stories and made of light brown- almost orange brick. It had a two-car garage and a single-car garage attached to the side.

"Nice," Rainbow Dash whistled.

"Thanks, my dad has a pretty high paying job." I replied as I dug my key out of my pocket.

"Will your dad mind us being here for very long?" Twilight cut in.

"Him and my mom are on a business trip," I said casually, "I have no idea when they'll be back, but it probably won't be for a while."

"How long is 'a while'," Applejack asked suspiciously.

"Couple weeks, most likely. Although they have been gone for longer before."

"Oh my… so you take care of yourself through it all?"

I shrugged as I unlocked the door, "Yea, I mean, it's not all that hard. I can cook so I don't have to worry about food or anything."

"What about the store?" Pinkie asked, "It seems like it takes a really really really long time to walk to places around here. How do you buy things?"

"I have a friend who drives me places when he's home."

"Drive?" Rarity raised an eyebrow.

I raised an eyebrow back as Twilight nudged her. They weren't very good at hiding the fact that they weren't from here, but I guess that's to be expected. After all, how were they supposed to know what cars were? Who knows how long they've been here, but assuming that they weren't starving to death as we spoke, it couldn't have been very long.

I sighed, "I think we're all gonna have to do a little explaining…"

"What do you mean?" Twilight asked as she walked into the house.

"Just… make yourself at home. I'm gonna go try to wash all this mud off."

I walked upstairs to my bathroom and looked in the mirror, hoping that they'd all be able to make their way around at least the living room. My hair was in spikes due to the mud drying on my scalp, and my face was barely visible. I sighed and I pulled off my shirt. Something was telling me it was going to be a long, long couple of weeks.


	2. Chapter 2

"Olly?" I felt a draft as the door opened slightly

"Gah!" I jumped. Luckily I already had pants on, and I was just drying my hair, "Twilight… uh… for future reference, don't walk in on people when their in the bathroom."

"Oh… right of course! Sorry," she apologized frantically as she shut the door again; probably fearing that she already blew her cover.

I sighed and continued to dry my hair. I'd have to find a subtle way to tell them they were just part of a television show in this world. And after that, I would have to teach them how to act human.

"Olly?" Twilight knocked on the door this time, "Can I come in?"

I laughed to myself, "Hold on! Let me put a shirt on. What do you need?"

"Well I uh… I think we all kind of got lost," she said timidly.

I sighed, should've seen that coming, "Why didn't you all just go to the living room like I told you?"

"You were up here for a pretty long time so we all thought we'd explore a bit," she explained, "There's not much else to do."

"What about the TV?" I asked, knowing she wouldn't know what it was. I simply wanted to know how she'd react.

"The… TV? Oh, oh right! I barely noticed it!" she stuttered. I laughed again.

"It's a thirty inch flat screen, Twilight," I countered, "A little hard to miss."

There was a long pause while Twilight tried to interpret what I was saying. When she finally gave up, she simply changed the subject, "Well, I-I'm lost. And I can't find anypony else."

I chuckled at the word 'anypony'. Gotta fix that. I pulled on my white t-shirt and opened the door, only bump into Twilight, who was apparently leaning her entire body against the door in order to talk to me.

"Well, this is a first," I said casually, "Yea, the house is kinda big, but there aren't that many places to get lost in."

My second floor was simply a balcony looming over the gigantic living room. There were four doors, two guest rooms, the bathroom, and my room, all connected by one thin hallway. Below us was the living room, which was connected to the kitchen and dining room. From there, a hallway that lead to three other doors which lead to the basement, another bathroom, and my parent's room.

"Did you see where everyone went?" I asked.

"Uh… Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Rarity went down that hallway," she said pointing towards the hallway to the basement, "and Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie followed me up here, but then disappeared."

"Well," I shrugged, "Those two have got to be in one of the rooms up here, unless they decided to jump over the railing… and I think the other three are in the basement."

I walked toward my door and opened it to find Fluttershy sitting on my bed, simply looking around the room. My room was relatively large. There was a big playroom with three light grey walls and one red. A black desk was placed against the red wall, and a dark blue couch was placed against the one across from that. An archway lead to a smaller room with the same colored paint, and my queen bed in the center.

"O-oh! Hello there, Olly…"

"Hey Fluttershy," I started skeptically but then took a breath, "Like my room?"

"Oh my! T-this is your room? I'm so sorry; I didn't mean to intrude…"

I waved it off, "Don't worry about it. At least it's somewhat clean."

Fluttershy hid behind her hair a bit and grinned, "You're room is… very nice."

I nearly daw'd and covered my mouth with one hand to hide my blush. I saw Twilight smirk a bit, and I just backed away from the door.

"Come on," I said calming myself down, "We still have to find the others…"

I turned back into the hallway and immediately went up a small set of stairs to my dad's office. Inside there was a dark green couch that folded out into a guest bed, and a large, wooden desk cluttered with multiple computers, papers, and books. I looked around; no movement whatsoever. I nearly shrugged and left the room, when I heard a clattering sound from the closet door. Cautiously, I opened the door to reveal none other than Pinkie Pie surrounded by my various Lego creations.

"Hiya, Olly!" she shouted happily, playing with the mouth of a shark-like cave.

"Pinkie… what are you doing in here?"

"Did'ja make this city, Olly?" she asked, not bothering to answer my question.

"Well… yea…"

"That's so super duper cool!" she shouted, inspecting a submarine I had made.

"What is all of this made out of?" Twilight asked, leaning in the doorway.

"Uh… Lego's," I paused, deciding to have a little fun, "You know, every kid's best friend. The must have toy that everyone's played with at least once in their lifetime?"

"Well, I've never-" Pinkie started, until Twilight jumped in and covered up her mouth.

"Oh yea, of course! Leg… os… right!"

I nearly giggled as I stepped out of the closet and started down the stairs, "Meet me in the living room, okay? I'm going to find the others, and then we can talk."

With that, I practically jumped down the stairs and turned down the hallway into the basement. My basement, I believed, was the beauty of my house. There was a long, wood-floor hallway that lead to a makeshift kitchen, and a carpeted theatre area with four movie-styled loveseats and a large flat screen. Behind that there was a good-sized pool table with black felt. There was one, extremely small guest bedroom down there, but it was big enough for a double to fit into.

Once I approached the bottom of the stairs, I could hear Applejack and Rainbow Dash talking amongst themselves. I paused, wondering if I should eaves drop or not. I decided there wouldn't be any harm to listen for a couple of seconds.

"What is all of this?" I heard Rainbow asked, most likely gesturing to my game counsels and TV.

"I dunno, but this world sure is somethin'," Applejack replied back, "These creatures've got stuff I never even imagined before."

"Hey guys," I interrupted, getting bored with their conversation, "We're meeting in the living room. Where's Rarity?"

"I'm over here!" I heard an elegant voice shout from the guest room, "I was just admiring the lovely sheets on this bed. Whoever made them?"

I raised an eyebrow, "Uh… IKEA?"

"Hm, well I'd very much like to meet this 'IKEA'," she concluded, "She has wonderful taste in fabric."

This time, I couldn't help but laugh a little, "Okay, we really need to talk. Come on, let's go upstairs."

The three girls followed me up the stairs and into the living room. We all sat down at one of the many leather couches and just stared at each other for a while. I had to think of a way to tell them about the show without freaking them out or… making them feel bad.

"Olly… What we're about to tell you might come as a bit of a shock…"

I sighed, it was now or never; "I… don't bet on me getting too surprised…"

"This is really a doozey, sugarcube," Applejack reaffirmed, almost trying to make me skeptical.

"Guys… there's something you should know."

They all stared at me with confused looks on their faces. I gulped. How was there an easy way to do this? Tell them that Lauren Faust imagined them all up and put them on TV for little girl's entertainment. Come to think of it, though… these girls must be real. How'd Faust know about them?

"Humans… we're kinda weird," I started, "Some of us have this really active imagination… that I guess allows us to see different realities. And sometimes, we don't know how to communicate these visions, so we show them to everyone… claiming we made it all up."

I winced; that came out way more confusing than I intended it to. All but Twilight looked at me in the same confused way.

"W-what are you saying?" Twilight asked.

I pointed to my TV, "These visions are spread using this. We write things down, draw things, act things out, so that other people can see. But we don't really know how to communicate that it's a vision, so we just say that we made it all up."

Now, even Twilight was confused. I sighed, "Look… I know who all of you are. And I know you're not from earth. You're from Equestria."

"Oh… my…" Fluttershy sank further into the couch.

"How the hay did you know?" Rainbow shouted.

I leaned back and explained Laruen Faust's show to the girls, and how she claimed to have written it all herself. I, for one, still wasn't sure how she had obtained the information, but that was the best guess I was able to come up with.

"All I can really say is… you're lucky that it was me you ran into," I finished, "Not everyone in the world knows who you are, and some of the things you've said would be pretty hard to clear up, no offense. I can tell you were trying really hard to hide it, but you guys are obviously not from around here."

A couple of the girls blushed, and I just smiled in return.

"So… you know who we are from this thing you called a… what? A TV?" Applejack tried to collect her thoughts.

"Yea," I replied casually, "I just turn it on, and it plays on the screen. Not only that, though. Tons of different shows play on TV. Your show only appears on this channel called the Hub."

"May we see this 'show'?" Rarity asked curiously.

I cringed, "I dunno… it might be a little weird to see yourselves on TV… especially because you never realized you were being watched by someone."

"Pretty pretty please, Olly?" Pinkie jumped in suddenly.

"Well… okay but… I'll get us some snacks first. And if any of you get uncomfortable just let me know, and I'll turn it off."

With that, I went into the kitchen and came back with a couple bowls of chips. A few of the girls looked at them cautiously, but I simply nodded at them in encouragement and popped one in my mouth.

I turned on the TV and went to my recordings, where I had every episode of the show recorded and saved. Call me obsessive. I went in and decided to play the first episode, so that they would all be featured.

All of the girls stared in awe at not only the TV itself, but seeing their own faces on the screen. I knew it must've been weird for them, but they didn't seem to be reacting all that badly, just a bit shocked. I took a breath and decided to enjoy the episode without worrying about their reactions. After a while, we started the second part, and I found myself quietly singing along to 'Giggle at the Ghostie' and pinkie danced across the screen.

This is the reaction I was afraid of. As soon as Pinkie heard me singing, she snapped her head towards me in confusion. I quickly shut my mouth, but the others were already looking at me skeptically.

"You know… everything about us… don't ya," Applejack whispered.

I gulped, "As much as they've put in the show, yea."

Their expressions began to sadden, and I frantically stood up from my spot and paused the show. They all looked up at me, half confused, half sad. I gritted my teeth and stood before them.

"Did you see those guys messing with me earlier?" I asked suddenly.

They looked shocked, and then Twilight spoke up, "Yea… why were they-"

"I've had to deal with that every single day of my life since I've lived in this house," I continued, "You have no idea how much pain I've experienced in these past couple years."

"Darling… why-"

"But I was able to get through it. You know why? Because every week, I could wake up to this," I pointed at the TV, smiling, "Through your own adventures, you've given me words of encouragement like you would never believe. I've been told to kill myself; I've had to come home to an empty house covered from head to toe in mud more often than I'd like to remember. But you, all of you helped me through that. So don't be sad! Sure, you're just characters in my world. But you've made such a difference in my life, in so many peoples' lives that it shouldn't matter."

I scanned their faces for any hint of reaction. They were all smiling now, and small tears were beginning to fill up Rarity's eyes.

"I… had no idea," Twilight said simply.

"We… did we really help you… that much?" Fluttershy asked.

I nodded, "I don't know what I'd do if I didn't watch this show. It's probably the only thing keeping me sane."

Suddenly, Rarity stood and pulled me into a hug. I flinched, but then allowed myself to relax into her soft grip. Slowly, the other five came and joined in the hug.

"Thank ya, Olly," Applejack smiled.

"No problem," I replied, beginning to break away from the hug, "Now that we have that out of the way… I'm guessing you all have no idea where you're going to be living until you find a way back home."

They all stared at the floor uncomfortably, and I laughed, "You can all stay here, I don't mind."

"Really?" Pinkie said excitedly.

"Olly, you've already been so kind to us already. We wouldn't want to trouble you even more," Twilight cut in.

I shrugged, "Hey, I don't mind. It could be fun. And my parents aren't here to say no, so why not? Besides, it's gonna be hard for you to find anywhere else, and I'm not allowed to let you guys freeze to death."

"Well, thank ya kindly," Applejack tipped her hat.

"Yea, thanks kid," Rainbow Dash joined in, "Now, who wants to get some real grub? I'm starving over here!"

I laughed, "I'll start dinner. You guys just make yourselves comfortable around here… and try not to get lost again, please."


	3. Chapter 3

"Okay guys, dinner is-" I stopped in my tracks when I looked back to the living room.

Rainbow Dash, who was now lying on her back in front of the TV, must've gotten hot or something. Because as soon as I looked down; there she was. The silk dress she was wearing before? Gone.

I gawked in shock for a second, but then quickly turned away and shut my eyes tight, "RAINBOW! MOTHER OF- PUT YOUR CLOTHES BACK ON!"

"Huh?" Rainbow asked confusedly, "How come?"

"Look, in the human world, we wear clothes for a REASON. We have… things… we need to cover up…"

"You mean thes-"

"Yes! Yes, I mean those! Put your dress back on, please!" I repeated frantically, trying ever so hard to hide the deep shade of red that now covered my face. I heard a bunch of random shuffling come from the living room, and then an awkward silence, save for the yelling of the television.

"They're back on," Rainbow Dash said awkwardly.

I took a breath and turned around, glad to see that everyone was fully clothed. They all stared at me skeptically, but I just shrugged it off and continued where I left off.

"Dinner's ready," I sighed in relief.

I had a bit of trouble deciding what I wanted to make at first. Part of me wanted to be easier on them and just make something quick, like frozen pizza or something. But another part of me wanted to make something huge to welcome them. It took some debate, but I decided I kinda just wanted to make garlic pasta instead. No meat risk, not too hard, but not too lazy.

We all sat around the dining room table and stared at eachother for a second. I was a bit confused as to why they hadn't started eating yet, but I nearly face palmed when I realized I was the only one holding a fork.

"Okay," I sighed, "Human lesson number one: forks."

I carefully explained to them how to wrap their fingers around this strange new utensil, mentally laughing as I did so. It was defiantly going to be a long couple of weeks.

After they started to get the hang of it, we all dug in and I began thinking about how the next couple of weeks were going to play out.

"Tomorrow's Saturday," I started, "So I'll be home all day. We should probably go shopping so you guys have more than just those dresses to wear."

"I agree, darling," Rarity started, "Although I am quite fond of this material."

"After that…" I continued, "Well, I guess we can just hang out. You guys need to get adjusted; I'll probably need to do some homework that I'm not doing now…"

"I can help you with your homework," Twilight perked up happily.

I smiled, "Thanks Twilight, but I have a feeling you're not gonna be the best at American History. The school system in this world is most likely a bit different than the school system in Equestria."

"Can I work with you anyway?" she asked, "It'll be interesting to learn the history of this world."

"I guess so," I shrugged, "It would help you get adjusted. In the meantime, though, I would suggest learning as much as you can from the internet."

"The internet?"

"Yea… Hold on a second."

I got up from the table and sped up to my room. My laptop was casually sitting on my desk. I grabbed it and ran down the stairs.

"This is a laptop," I started as I approached the table, "Or rather, a personal computer. Think of it as… the biggest library in the world. Only everything is condensed into here using the internet."

They all stared at me in wonder. I sat back down at my seat, and they all crowded around me and I booted up my desktop. I picture of Queen Elsa from Frozen lit up the screen. They all gasped in awe.

"To get to the internet, you click this button," I continued, clicking on Google Chrome. I demonstrated how you use your fingers to type, and I showed them my Facebook page. Then I proceeded to the search bar and typed in Wikipedia.

"This will probably be the easiest way to learn about the world," I explained, "It's not the most academic source in the world, but it'll defiantly give you the information you want. We'll start with 'human'"

I typed in the word and watched as the information popped up. It surprisingly seemed like a pretty lengthy page, going into detail about the growth cycle and body features.

"If you want to know about anything, type it in the search bar. If you run out of things to search for, just click on the related searches here. This site is pretty endless, so you'll know a ton in no time."

Twilight excitedly began to scan over the page. I smiled; getting them adjusted wouldn't be as hard as I thought it would be. As they all read, I quietly stood up and cleared the table.

"You need some help with that, sugarcube?" I heard Applejack ask as I walked into the kitchen. I nearly blushed at the name 'sugarcube'.

"Nah, I got it," I laughed it off.

I loaded the dishwasher and pressed start, then leaned back against the fridge. The reality of the situation was finally beginning to hit me. I had ponies in my house. And not just any ponies, the ponies from my favorite show of all time. The show had already become my life. It was all I thought about. And to have them here… I glanced over to the table. They were all happily chatting amongst themselves as they fiddled with the laptop. To have them here was literally a dream come true. But what was going to happen? As far as I could tell, Twilight didn't have her horn. How were they going to get back? Could they get back? How long would they have to stay with me? What would they do with their time?

"Olly? You okay?" I heard a voice ask. I snapped out of it to see Rainbow Dash standing at the entrance to the kitchen with a raised eyebrow. I nearly shook my head. Rainbow Dash was standing in my house.

"Yea I'm fine," I shrugged, "Just thinking about things. What's up?"

"Got bored," she shrugged back, walking to my side, "This whole internet thing is cool and all, but I think I can figure things out on my own."

I nodded. I had mostly booted up the thing for Twilight's benefit, since I knew reading was the easiest way for her to learn. I glanced over at Rainbow. There was a ton on my mind, and I'm sure a ton on hers as well. I grinned.

"Hey Rainbow," I started, "You wanna come on a run with me?"

At this, she perked up a bit, "You go running here?"

I laughed, "Yea, of course. We gotta exercise somehow, don't we? I mean, not everyone does… but it's not uncommon."

She frowned a bit, "But it's already so dark out."

"That's how I like it," I shrugged, "Good temperature, and no one else around."

With that we stood up, let the others know where we were going, and started out the door. She seemed a little skeptical on using her legs at first, but I demonstrated slowly, and she eventually got the hang of it.

"Did you feel that?" Rainbow suddenly said.

"Feel what?" I said, before suddenly feeling a small speck of cold hit my shoulder. I nearly cursed; I forgot about the rain.

"We better get back before it starts," Rainbow suggested.

I sighed, feeling the droplets hit me more constantly "It's pretty far… I don't think we'll make it in time even if we both ran at full speed."

"You wanna bet?" Rainbow got a competitive gleam in her eye, taking a racing stance. I was taken back at first, but then smiled, taking a racing stance as well. I pulled off my shirt and shoved it in my back pocket.

"You're on."

"Ready?" Rainbow started.

"Set…"

With that, we both took off running as fast as we could. Cold rain hit my face and matted down my hair as I advanced forward, neck in neck with Rainbow Dash. I thought about how cool it'd be if I could say that I beat Rainbow Dash in a race. I ran faster.

"I don't think so, pipsqueak," she yelled as she sprinted in front of me. I took a deep breath and imagined myself earlier that day, being chased by all the guys. I felt adrenaline shoot up into my chest and I quickly passed her, leaving her a good three feet behind me. I wiped away some of the rain that was dripping down my face and closed my eyes, letting my feet take control of my thoughts. It felt so good. I hadn't done this is a long time.

I thought about all the girls waiting back at the house. How did they manage to make their way into this world? Why MY world? Of all the places in the universe they could've ended up, why here? Why now? The world became nothing but an endless void in which I could keep running and thinking. I could barely hear Rainbow Dash trying to keep up behind me. I wondered what kind of life they would have to make in this world. I'd have to help them, but how? It wouldn't be easy. I thought of how messed up the world was, how many things these girls would have to see that they were never meant to see. I cursed to myself; I couldn't see them go through that.

"Olly?" I heard Rainbow Dash faintly call out. I couldn't respond; I was too busy thinking about how to deal with all of this.

"Olly! Hey!" I snapped out of it and stopped running. I looked around the see that we were very close to my house, and the rain was pouring around us. Rainbow Dash caught up to me and panted.

"It's raining pretty hard," she said between breaths, "I couldn't see you ahead. I called you like seven times! Why didn't you answer me?"

I paused, suddenly trying to catch my breath. I put my hands on my knees and gasped for air. Suddenly Rainbow looked concerned rather than aggravated.

"You okay, kid?"

"Yea, yea, I'm fine," I gasped, "Sorry, I got lost in thought. We better get inside."

She casually put a hand on my shoulder and we both walked up to the house, and entered through the back door.

"There you guys are!" Pinkie shouted, "Whoa, you're all soaked!"

I wiped some of the water away from my eyes, "Well, it IS raining."

"What took you so long," Twilight asked, looking up from the computer screen, "You guys had us a little worried."

"Olly here got all spacey," Rainbow said casually, almost squeezing out her hair.

"I'll get you two some towels," Rarity started.

"I got it," I countered, running up the stairs. I glanced over the balcony and noticed Rainbow talking to Twilight and Rarity in a hushed voice. All three of them looked extremely concerned. I shrugged and went into the bathroom.

I looked at myself in the mirror. My face was extremely pink, and I was soaking wet. I shakily pulled my inhaler out of a drawer and inhaled some of the medicine. I didn't often like to admit to other people that I had asthma, so I hid the inhaler in my bathroom. That way, if anyone found it and asked, it wasn't mine.

I felt my heart beat begin to slow down and my lungs begin to calm. I took a deep breath. Once I was sure I was breathing normally, I grabbed a couple of towels from the closet and made my way down the stairs again.

When I walked down the hallway, the three girls were still being secretive by the door, while the other three were still crowding around the computer. When I approached, the three by the door turned to me and smiled, as if they had casually been waiting here all this time. I was about to question them about it, but decided not to bother.

"Here ya go," I said, throwing a towel at Rainbow.

"Thanks," she replied. We both dried ourselves off. I looked up at her; her dress was completely soaked. I sighed.

"You wanna borrow some clothes?"

"If you don't mind, that would be rad," she replied smiling.

I went up to my room and grabbed a light blue T-shirt and some black basketball shorts. I always wore my clothes extremely baggy, so I was sure they would fit her. I made my way back down the stairs and threw them to Rainbow.

"You can change in the bathroom over there," I pointed down the hallway, "Second door on your right."

"Okay," she replied, and walked into the bathroom.

"Olly?" Fluttershy perked up from behind the computer screen, "I'm sorry… but… where are we all going to sleep tonight?"

"Well…" I began to think out loud, "You can either pair up, or you can all sleep in the same room if you want. There are two guest rooms upstairs and one in the basement."

"I don't mind parin' up," Applejack started, "Me n' Rainbow'll take the room downstairs."

"Oh! Oh! I wanna bunk with Fluttershy!" Pinkie shouted, hugging Fluttershy's head as if she were putting her in a soft headlock.

"Then I guess Rarity and I will room together," Twilight concluded.

"Okay," I replied, "Twilight and Rarity, you guys can room in my dad's office, and Pinkie and Flutters can take the other guest room. It used to be my sister's room, but it's been empty for a while now."

"Where's your sister?" Rarity asked.

"College," I shrugged, "We didn't really talk much, anyway."

"Where's college?" Applejack perked up.

"I read something about it," Twilight interrupted, "It's a school that kids go away to once they finish high school. It's to train for your special talent."

"You got the right idea," I replied, "But I wouldn't call it training for your special talent. Just training for the job field you want to go into. It might be your special talent, it might not. Completely depends on what the person wants."

"Why would you want to train for something that isn't your special talent?" Twilight asked.

"Because humans don't necessarily know what their special talent is," I replied casually, "A lot of people are good at a lot of different things. Sometimes it's hard to find your passion in life."

"But they're gonna figure it out even'tlly… right?" Applejack asked.

"Hard to say," I scratched the back of my head, "Some people do, some people don't."

They all seemed completely shocked by this, and we all stared at eachother for a while. I tried to find a simpler way for them to understand it in my head, but nothing was coming out.

"People just… do stuff," I ended up saying simply.

"Olly?" I heard Rainbow Dash call from the hallway. I turned to see…

"Olly, how to do put these on?" she asked, holding up the pair of shorts.


	4. Chapter 4

I was sitting on my bed with my laptop at my side. All of the girls had long since gone to bed. It was something like four in the morning, and I was sitting there staring at my desktop. It wasn't like this was abnormal. I wasn't much for sleeping. I had recently been put on stimulant medication, so that helped a bit, but with all that I had been thinking about I found it hard to even close my eyes.

The strange Skype noise perked me out of my daze and an orange glow lit up my screen. I clicked on Skype to see my friend, Kendall, had sent me a YouTube video. I opened up Skype, eager to talk to her about what had happened today. I began typing, but then hesitated. It wasn't like she was just going to believe me.

I clicked on the video, curious about what she could be sending me this late at night. YouTube opened up and revealed a picture of Celestia and Luna both looking up into the night sky. I looked down at the title of the video: Do you want to see the Moon Rise. The familiar tune of 'Do You want to build a Snowman' danced throughout the room. I smiled, Frozen was so great. I then heard a small child voice come into the music, and I felt my heart melt.

"Tia! Tia! Doth thou want to see the moon rise?"

I returned to Skype, still listening to the music, and typed in, "You can't be doing this to me right now. *cries self to the moon*"

"I didn't need my heart, thank you," she replied.

I continued to listen to the song, nearly rolling off my bed as Celestia began singing.

"I can't handle this feel," I groaned out loud, clenching my heart.

"Olly?" I heard a voice ask, "You okay?"

I quickly jumped up and paused the song playing on my computer. I turned to see Twilight standing in my doorway, a shocked expression planted on her face.

"Yea, yea I'm fine!" I smiled at her nervously.

"You didn't seem fine…" She pondered, walking into my room and sitting on my bed.

"Really, I'm fine. No big deal."

"What's a 'feel'?" she asked curiously but seriously.

I laughed to myself, "Its slang. It was developed on a website called 'Tumblr' where people post pictures and other things about stuff their interested in, such as My Little Pony. It's a shortened version of the word 'feelings', but 'feel' actually means like… a huge brick of sadness hitting you in the chest."

"That's… a strange analogy…" she whispered.

"Have you ever read a book that had a really sad ending?" I asked, deciding to give an example, "And you didn't exactly cry, but you felt like you could've if you tried, and it like made your heart break."

"Yea…" she replied cautiously.

"That pain you felt in your heart is what we call a 'feel'. And if it's something REALLY sad, you can experience multiple feels."

"I think I get it… but why were you experiencing feels?" she asked.

I shook my head, I would have to work on Tumblr slang eventually, but maybe another time, "Well… fans of My Little Pony like to create their own content. Such as writing their own stories, songs, etc."

"And you felt sad because of one of these?"

"Well… yea. It was a really sad song. Don't get me wrong, it was beautiful and I'm seriously considering downloading it onto my phone so I can listen to it more, but it was really sad."

"Can I listen?" she asked.

I flinched, "I dunno, Twilight. I mean, before today, this was all a made-up story to me… since the event actually happened in your world…"

"I will not experience too many feels. Pinkie promise."

I nearly laughed; defiantly need to work on that, "Okay, fine. But if you need me to turn it off, please just let me know."

I opened up YouTube again and started the song. Twilight's eyes widened at the picture of Celestia and Luna, and then she seemed to go into a trance as the music started.

"Doth thou want to see the moon rise?"

I cautiously eyed Twilight as the song played, making sure that she didn't go into some panic attack or something. I cringed as Celestia's hurt cry for Luna echoed throughout my room, and the song ended in a few minutes. I saw Twilight move away from the computer, tears brimming her eyes.

"I… I had no idea…," she started.

In a flash, I pulled her into an embrace and allowed her to cry into my shoulder. I knew it had been a terrible idea. Twilight was so close to the princesses, especially since she had recently become a princess herself. Hearing them both hurt like that had to be hard.

"I'm sorry, Twilight," was all I could say.

I allowed her to cry for quite a while, and eventually the room dumbed down to an awkward silence between the two of us. Suddenly, she looked up at me and broke the silence.

"Why are you awake, Olly?"

The question took me by surprise, "I guess I should be asking you the same thing. You went to bed hours ago. Everyone else is asleep."

"I'm not really sure," she replied glumly, "I just woke up, and I started thinking. Rarity was asleep and… well I guess I just felt like I needed to talk to someone."

I nodded, "Well, here I am. What do you want to talk about?"

She raised an eyebrow at me; I could tell she wasn't going to give up that easily, "Why are you up, Olly?"

I shrugged, "I never really went to sleep."

"What? Why not?"

"I dunno," I shrugged again; "I don't usually sleep very much anyway."

I could tell she wanted to question me further about it, but I gave her a tired look that said not to ask, so she changed the subject.

"I was thinking about Spike," she sighed.

"Oh yea…" I pondered, "How did you guys get here, anyway? Was he with you?"

"No, he wasn't," she sighed bashfully, "I was studying in the Canterlot library recently about Canterlot High. I found a strange spell that I didn't recognize, and I guess I accidentally read it out loud. Next thing I knew, we were all waking up in that forest…"

My mind suddenly flashed back to the Equestria Girls movie, "Oh yea… you have already been here, haven't you?"

"I… don't think so," she confirmed, "At first I thought this was the same world, when I saw that we all had hands, but something just seems so different about it."

"That makes sense. The Equestria Girls movie was animated, and they all had strange skin colors compared to n-," I stopped myself from saying the word 'normal', "… our species of humans. I wouldn't be surprised if that was a completely different universe."

Twilight yawned slightly, and tiredly looked out the window, "I'm not even sure how to get back. I don't have my horn, and there isn't a portal back to Equestria that I know of."

"I'm sure you'll find a way. I'll help you. No matter how long it takes, we'll find a way to get you back home."

She smiled sadly, "Thanks, Olly."

* * *

"Olly! Wakey-wakey!" a high-pitched voice echoed through my room.

I sat up with a jolt and looked around. What time was it? I turned to see that Twilight had already gotten out of my bed. I couldn't remember when she had left my room, or what time I'd fallen asleep, but I did feel refreshed. That was probably the most sleep I'd gotten in a long time.

I turned and looked at my clock; eleven thirty.

"Whoa!" I shouted, and turned to the voice at the door, "Why didn't you wake me up sooner?"

"Twilight said not to, somethin' about you needing sleep," Pinkie said casually, bouncing into the room, "But there's someone at the door!"

My eyes widened and I threw the covers off of me. Pinkie laughed as I slid on a presentable shirt and rushed passed her.

"Go Olly, go!" she cheered from my bedroom door.

I slid down the stairs and nearly face-planted into the window next to the front door. As expected, I spotted a broken up, run down white car parked in front of my house, and my friend Robby was standing at the front door with a casual smirk on his face.

Robby was a bit of a character. He had medium length, strawberry blonde hair and a lanky figure. He tended to be a bit scatterbrained, not unlike myself, and he had a very unique pitched voice. It wasn't high-pitched, but it wasn't low either.

Without thinking, I threw the door open, "Robby, I need to tell you something."

"Oh, hello," he responded bluntly, as if he didn't even realize he was standing at my door, "What's up?"

"You're not gonna believe me," I retracted a bit, "But something… magical… happened."

Robby looked extremely confused, and I motioned for him to step inside the house.

"Robby," I started cautiously, "The mane six are in my house. Right now."

We stared at eachother for a minute, but then Robby laughed his signature laugh. I wasn't sure if he didn't believe me or didn't understand, so I explained the situation to him. I explained how I found them… or rather; they found me, in the forest the day before. Robby had a strange smile planted on his face the entire time, making me uneasy.

"So now they're here," I finished, "And we need to go shopping."

Robby simply laughed again, before spying a certain pink-haired girl at the top of the stairs, waving down at us as if it were normal.

"Hiya!" Pinkie shouted.

Robby just stared at her for a second, seemingly processing this new development. Suddenly, the reality of the situation hit him, and his eyes widened just a bit.

"Oh? Oh!" he started shouting, "OH!"

I nodded, "Yea, I wasn't kidding. Anyway, turns out they only come with one outfit… false advertising from Hasbro if you've ever seen it."

"So we're going to the mall, then?" he said casually. He seemed to have gotten over the situation pretty quick.

"Yea… is that okay with you? I promise it won't take too long."

"I don't mind," he shrugged, "Except they won't all fit in my car."

My expression dropped; I had completely forgotten to think thought the numbers, "That's right… only three can go if we both go…"

"I have an idea," Twilight walked down the hallway toward us, "I'm Twilight Sparkle, by the way."

At this, Robby just laughed again. Unable to contain his amusement, he leaned back against the front door and took a few breaths.

"I'm sorry," he panted, "Okay, what's the idea."

"Um…," Twilight started again slowly, "Three of us could go first, and you drop us off with Olly, then you could take the other three and meet us there."

I cringed a bit, "That's a lot of driving… you okay with that, man?"

"Yea, I guess that's fine," he stood up straight again, "But I have to stop for gas on the way there."

"Dude, you're awesome," I punched him in the shoulder. He simply smiled and glanced around.

"Okay, so, who's coming along first?"

There was a while of discussion, along with me shoveling down an insanely quick breakfast and finding some decent clothes to wear to the mall. Apparently, the girls had already been up for hours, and they were all set and ready to go. Why Twilight told them to let me sleep in; I'll never know. But it caused quite a bit of panicked rush as I tried to get ready.

"I think Fluttershy should stick with you," Robby was saying as I combed my hair, "She'd be more comfortable at least."

"I guess so," I replied, trying to decide which way I wanted to part my bangs, "But she's shy around me anyway."

"Then we'll pair her up with someone close," he shrugged, "Like Rarity."

"Good idea," I replied, "That leaves one more."

He raised an eyebrow at me and smirked. I finished combing my hair and turned to him with a confused expression.

"What?"

"You're not gonna suggest Applejack?"

My cheeks turned a shade of pink and I leaned in close to him, "We do not speak of that. It was one thing when she had no idea I existed, but I have a girlfriend."

He just laughed and turned to the balcony, "Okay! We're ready to go! Fluttershy, Rarity, and Applejack are coming along first!"

I growled, "Asshole."

I walked down the stairs and walked up to Twilight, who was busy studying the human world on my laptop.

"You sure you guys are gonna be okay? He'll be back to get you in an hour max," I checked in while reading over her shoulder.

"Relax, kid," Rainbow said, coming out of the kitchen, "We've got everything under control."

"Don't worry, Olly," Twilight smiled up at me, "I'll make sure everything goes smoothly until we leave in an hour."

"Okay," I sighed, "I'll see you guys at the mall."

I walked down the hallway again and began to walk out the door, "Bye, Pinkie Pie!" I shouted to the upstairs.

"Buh Bye Olly!" I heard a voice shout back.

Satisfied, I followed the other four out the door and we all piled into Robby's car. The thing was run down, old, and broken in some places. It was a white, forty-seven year old car. The air conditioning didn't work, it had manual windows, both the front and back bumpers were falling off, and the thing barely accelerated. But it ran, and that was all that mattered.

"So, how does this thing work, exactly?" Applejack asked while climbing into the back seat with Rarity and Fluttershy.

"There's a thing called an engine inside," I explained, "Once Robby turns this key, it stars, and we can go pretty much anywhere on dry land pretty quickly."

Fluttershy nervously clenched Rarity's sleeve, and I grinned, "Don't worry, Fluttershy. After you get used to it, you can barely feel yourself moving. And Robby is a very safe driver."

Fluttershy nodded, but she still refused to let go of Rarity. I nodded at Robby and he begun to pull out of my street and onto the road. I looked in the rearview mirror to see Fluttershy with her eyes closed tightly, and the other two with expressions of half nervousness and half amazement. I casually leaned back and watched the roads go by.

"How you guys holdin' up back there?" Robby asked the rearview mirror.

"This is defiantly… somethin'," Applejack said in a daze, while both Rarity and Fluttershy nodded in agreement.

After a while of seemingly silent driving, we arrived at the mall. Robby and I agreed on a time and place to meet when he arrived with the other three girls, and the four of us headed inside.

There were two malls nearest to our neighborhood; one being indoors and one being outdoors. No matter what the season, I always tended to prefer the indoor mall. Something about it made me more comfortable. We walked in through the double doors to reveal a large food court, with different restaurants lining the walls and a carousel spinning off to the side.

"Oh… my…" Fluttershy coward as she caught sight of all the people sitting around at the tables.

"Don't worry, Fluttershy," I grinned, placing a hand on her shoulder, "Just stay close to me. I know where I'm going, and no one will talk to you if you don't want them to."

She nodded and shuffled closer to me. I smiled and began making my way out into the common area. The mall was filled with different stores. I wouldn't call it the biggest mall in the world, but I liked to think the size was pretty decent. The upper floor was simply a ring of balconies overlooking another common area down below, which consisted of more stores, some small booths, and a large fountain.

"This place is incredible," Rarity marveled, taking in the sight of the whole mall.

"I like to spend a good amount of my time here," I mused, "I usually don't do much shopping, but it's fun to hang around and people watch."

"So, what're we gonna do 'till Robby and the others get here?" Applejack perked up.

I looked around; what was there to do casually with a bunch of ponies? I mean, they'd have to learn to be humans eventually, but I couldn't just jump right into it, could I?

"I actually come here a ton without knowing what I want to do," I thought out loud, "I usually just walk around until I get an idea."

And so, we did just that. The four of us made decent conversation, simply walking in circles around the large mall. A couple of times, they would ask me questions about the escalators, the moving advertisements, the music coming from many of the stores, etc.

Before we knew it, and hour had already passed. I was quickly growing used to having the three girls around me. They were like long lost friends, and they were so easy to talk to. I had known them for such a long time; we just never had the chance to actually speak to eachother before.

"Where exactly did Robby say he was going to meet us?" Rarity asked.

"Over in that one weird lounge area," I replied tiredly.

They all raised eyebrows at me, but I just shrugged it off and walked across the mall, making sure they were keeping in toe. We arrived at a small area circled with couches. I stepped down and fell back on a couch.

"We just wait here till they show up," I yawned.

"Olly? Are… are you okay?" Fluttershy mumbled.

I sat up, "Yea, I'm fine. Why?"

The three seemed to cautiously glance at eachother before Rarity spoke, "Well, Twilight spoke to us about how she found you awake all night. And you do seem rather tired."

I laughed a bit and waved it off, "Don't worry about it, guys. I don't sleep much in general. If something was wrong, I would be way more out of it than I am now."

"Listen, sugarcube," Applejack sat down next to me. I nearly had to cover my mouth to hide how red my cheeks were.

"I know we only jus' met eachother, but you've at least known us fer a while now," she started, scooting close to me.

I smiled, "Nearly four years now. I've been watching the show since the summer of seventh grade."

Her eyes seemed to widen in shock from this statement, but she shook it off and got back on topic, "If there's ever anythin' wrong, don't be scared to talk to us. We been here for ya this long; we won't abandon ya just cuz we're here in person."

It took me a second to process what she had just told me, but a small grin crept across my face all the same, "Thanks."

Applejack seemed satisfied with this reply, and she casually let herself slump into the couch, followed by the other two girls. I couldn't stop thinking about what Applejack had just said. It made me feel so… weirdly happy. I wasn't sure if it was because it was Applejack, or because no one had ever directly said something like that to me before, but I felt good.

I snapped out of my daze to see Robby casually walking toward us with that strange spring in his step he always seemed to have. Behind him was Twilight, Pinkie Pie, and Rainbow Dash and… Kendall?

Kendall was a senior in high school, same age as Robby; and a bit shorter than the group she was walking with. Heck, she's a bit shorter than I am. She had short, chestnut brown hair and light freckles. From a distance, she seemed to walk with the most formal posture you'd ever see from a teenage girl. Up close, however, she was nearly as cocky as the rest of us. Not as dumb and reckless, but defiantly as cocky.

As soon as she made eye contact with me, a foolish glare painted her face and she started taking faster strides. I immediately sprang up from my spot on the couch and hid behind a nearby plant.

"You didn't tell me?" she yelled, still about fifteen feet away.

"I didn't think you'd believe me if I just Skyped it to you," I yelled back, not moving from my spot.

"Who's the one that came up with the head canon about how they could get here?"

"It didn't even happen that way!" I began to come out from my hiding, but the confusion on the girl's faces made me want to play along a little longer.

"Hey, Rainbow Dash!" I shouted. She looked up at me in confusion, and then I gestured toward Robby.

"I call Rainbow, Robby, Twilight and Applejack on my team!" I yelled out. Robby gave me a knowing smile and grabbed Rainbow and Twilight. I jumped out from behind the plant and grabbed Applejack.

"What in the hay is goin' on?" Applejack asked me in complete bewilderment.

"Wee! I get Kendall on my team!" Pinkie shouted.

"We're playing war," I laughed, "You're on our team."

"Hey, wait a second," Kendall said in shock, "The only time I've ever tried to play this; we got kicked out of the mall!"

"Sucks for you, Ma!" I laughed as Robby and the two other girls ran to my side.

"Wait, 'Ma'?" Twilight asked.

"I'll explain another time," I said in a restless voice, "We gotta run!"

"Rarity! Fluttershy! Grab them!" Kendall shouted, still completely unsure of the rules of the game.

Before the two could even react, Robby and I had jumped up behind the plant again and ran into Macy's, dragging our team along with us as we did so. We stumbled through the many hallways and finally decided on hiding within a clothing rack. Robby and I both laughed to our hearts content, and the other three uneasily laughed along with us.

"So… why'd you call her 'Ma'?" Twilight asked again.

"I don't really remember how it started," I admitted, "She's a couple years older than me… and we go to the same school. She's always kinda keeping track of me… so one day I just started calling her mom, I guess."

The reactions I got were almost… sympathetic? I shook my head. I didn't want to deal with that type of thinking right now.

"Weren't we here to find clothes for them?" Robby asked suddenly.

"We'll head up the escalator," I shot back, "That way we can sneak out of Macy's and into another department store. We can start buying for these three until they find us."

"Can somepony PLEASE explain to me what's going on?" Rainbow asked impatiently.

"SomeBODY," I corrected her in a hushed voice, "And war is a completely pointless game my friends and I sometimes play around the mall. The object is to find the other team and capture as many of them as possible. Also, don't get caught by the other team."

"Did I hear her say that ya got kicked out last time ya played this?" Applejack asked suspiciously.

"Yea…," I blushed, "But it totally wasn't my fault! We invited more people than we should have, and this stupid guy decided to go and get reckless. He sent a flying kick at my girlfriend's sister. The mall cops were watching, so THEY got kicked out."

"They?" Twilight asked, unamused.

"Yes, they," I sighed, "I was nowhere near them at the time. My friend Ruby and I were on the lower level trying to scout out a better base than the FroYo place in JCPenny's. Then Kendall called me to tell me that they got kicked out."

After a bit more of explanation behind the game, we cautiously made our way out of our hiding spot and up the escalators. Since the other team was nowhere in sight, we decided to start our shopping here. I decided on buying two outfits for each girl, plus new sleepwear. We would buy more as time went on, but I didn't want to spend more than five hundred in one trip.

I was glad I had chosen these three for my team; the shopping would defiantly get done a lot faster. Within twenty minutes, both Applejack and Rainbow had found an outfit they liked. Rainbow chose a light blue hoodie, a pair of black track-pants with a pink stripe down the side, and a hot pink T-shirt.

I looked over to Applejack and nearly laughed: she had chosen an orange and white plaid button-down shirt with a pair of dark blue jeans and a new cowboy hat. It was so Applejack I could hardly contain my amusement.

"Olly?" Twilight called from an isle over, "Can you come help me?"

I walked over to Twilight to see her examining the graphic tees. "I'm assuming you'll want a little purple in your outfit," I smiled as I walked up to her.

"I think so," She pondered, "But I'm still not sure exactly what to get."

I looked around, "What about that one?" I pointed to a purple and black striped collared shirt. It seemed to be about her size, and it was simple enough, and it would be easy to match a simple pair of jeans with.

"Hmm…" she stared at it for a minute.

I looked over and spotted a shelf of accessories. I searched through it for a bit, and managed to find a purple and silver headband lined with stars similar to Twilight's cutie mark.

"Hey Twilight!" I ran up to her again, "What do you think of this?"

A wide smile spread across her face, "It's beautiful, Olly!"

I blushed a bit; I admittedly wasn't the best at shopping, so this felt like a huge accomplishment to me. Before I had a chance to respond, I felt a pair of firm hands on my shoulders.

"Target captured!" I heard a familiar, high-pitched voice shout.

My eyes widened as I was lifted off the ground and pulled away from the isle.

"Twilight!" I yelled out, "Help!"

Twilight stood there in shock for a second, and then began to chase after us. I looked up at my captor, who had a silly smile on her face as she ran out of the Macy's. I looked back again to see Twilight had stayed behind, likely to keep the theft alarm from going off, and Robby was chasing us head on.

I threw Robby my credit card, "Buy their things! I'll try to find you guys later! Meet me at the base in Penny's!"

Robby stopped running and picked up the card, which allowed Pinkie to run into a nearby store and hide behind a wall. She covered my mouth to keep me from shouting, but she couldn't help laughing herself.

"That was so fun!" she tried to whisper, but it ended up coming out as kind of a squeak.

I shook my head and attempted to stand up, but she hugged me close to her again, "Nokey dokey! You're a prisoner now!"

"I know how the game works, Pinkie," I laughed, "I'm not allowed to leave unless it's with another team member. Whether it be my team or yours. You don't have to keep a hold on me."

She gave me a childish, suspicious look and allowed me to stand, but she kept a tight grip on my wrist just in case. I squirmed uncomfortably at this, but then took a breath and played along. Pinkie led me slowly out of the store and into the Panera nearby. I shook my head; it had been my first base.

"Very creative base, Kendall," I said sarcastically as we approached the table.

She gave an evil giggle as I slid into the booth next to her, and Pinkie slid in after me.

"We were just about to get a bunch of shopping done for the girls on my team," I grumbled, "I had to throw my credit card to Robby mid-chase."

Kendall let out a laugh, "Playing war was YOUR idea. I'm just playing the game."

I stuck my tongue out at her, "Well, we can't get anything else done until Robby finds us."

I suddenly got an idea and smirked, "We'll have to miss out on all those beautiful, well-designed clothes. I was just helping Twilight pick something out that just screamed Twilight."

"Really...," Rarity raised an eyebrow, biting her lip.

"Olly…," Kendall started suspiciously.

"Oh yea, and you should've seen Applejack's choice. I was almost afraid she wouldn't be able to find anything she liked, but she ended up picking out something BEAUTIFUL. The variety here is so great."

At this, Rarity sprang up and pulled Pinkie out of the booth, "You must take me to them!"

I shrugged, "We can't do anything until Robby finds us. That is, unless you let me go."

"Olly…," Kendall said again. But before she could do anything, Rarity had grabbed my hand and we both ran out of the Panera.

"Olly!" I heard her shout in the distance behind us. I laughed and ran ahead of Rarity a bit. JCPenny's was all the way across the mall, and I had a feeling we would have to try to outrun Pinkie. I looked back to find, to my surprise, all three of them running after us; Fluttershy inching just ahead of the other two.

"Rarity," I yelled to my side, "Has Fluttershy been known to be very fast?"

Rarity thought for a minute, "Yes, but only on certain occasions. She chooses not to run most of the time. Why do you ask?"

I looked back again, "Cuz she's right on our tail!"

The two of us panicked and ran a little faster. I saw the JCPenny's in the distance and pulled Rarity forward with a sudden spur of adrenaline. I held my breath through the perfume isle and ended up hiding us behind a wall near the changing rooms. I could still hear the voices of the other three clearly.

"They couldn't have come this way," I heard Kendall sigh, "Olly's allergic to perfume."

I noticed Rarity raise an eyebrow at this, so I responded puffing up my cheeks full of air, hoping to get the message across. She slowly nodded and we listened to the three walk somewhere else in the store.

"Okay," I panted, "They're gone."

"Where are the others?" she asked while standing up.

"Just," I took a deep breath, "Gimme a sec."

Rarity's eyes widened as she knelt down next to me, "Are you alright?"

"Yea, yea I'm fine," I panted again, "Just tired."

I felt her soft hand touch my shoulder, and I continued trying to calm my heart down. Neither of us said a word; she just continued to stare at me with that concerned face.

"Okay," I finally said, "I'm ready now."

"Are you quite sure?" she asked softly.

"Yea," I sprang to my feet, "The other's are in a FroYo place hidden a couple isles over. Let's go."

I sucked in a bunch of air once again and we both began walking cautiously through the perfume isle. I felt my pulse begin to pound in my head, and I picked up the pace a bit. Rarity did so as well, although I could tell she was a bit unsure. As soon as we exited the isle, I let out a long pained breath. Rarity held her hands out as if she was preparing to catch me, but I waved it off.

"Totally fine," I reassured, "Come on, their over here."

We both walked up to the small FroYo place, and Robby let out a cheer.

"We got a prisoner!" he rejoiced, "Take that, Kendall."

"Prisoner?" Rarity's expression dropped.

"Hey, we treat our prisoners as team members on this team," I replied gracefully, jokingly taking her hand like a gentleman, "Your wish is my command."

All of the girls giggled a bit, and Robby threw me a smirk. I glanced around, "Anyone want a FroYo?"

We all sat at a small table for a bit, allowing for the four girls present to get to know Robby a little bit more. I was sure that Pinkie and Fluttershy were bonding with Kendall as we spoke, and I took a sip of my newly bought Slurpee, satisfied with myself.

After that, we went into the store and I allowed the three girls on my team to pick out another outfit while Rarity searched for hers. Rarity ended up picking a white shirt with ruffles flowing off of the front and purple skinny jeans. It was surprisingly more casual than I expected from Rarity, which was nice. I was sure she was going to be the most expensive out of the six. Of course, she also became fascinated with the jewelry counter, but we agreed that she couldn't purchase anything more expensive than fifty dollars.

After I finished paying for the new items, I felt my cell phone ring in my pocket. I blushed when I realized my ringtone was the Gypsy Bard from Friendship is Witchcraft. Robby laughed; thankfully the others didn't seem to notice.

"Hello?" I answered my phone. It was Kendall.

"Hey, we I gotta be home in a couple hours," she sighed, "Don't you have to shop for these two?"

"Yea, okay. Where are you?"

"We're… well I decided they needed to pick out… well…"

My face turned a deep red, "Are you in Victoria's Secret?"

"Yea," she replied after a long, awkward pause. I heard Robby laugh behind me, nearly falling to the ground.

"Okay, we'll meet you up there. I'll give Twilight my card and you help them with… that."

'Okay, see you guys up here."

I hung up the phone, my face still a bright shade of pink. I uneasily looked back at my group, who all looked extremely confused. Except for Robby, who was unsuccessfully holding back a fit of giggles.

"Come on," I sighed, "We need to go meet Kendall and the others upstairs. Kendall's gonna help you with… well she'll explain."

We walked up the escalator and out of JCPenny's, and then I solemnly walked up to the familiar, pink-rimmed store. Kendall was waiting outside the doors with an awkward smile on her face. I awkwardly handed Twilight my credit card and turned to Kendall.

"Only one each," I decided, "I can't afford much from this store, anyway. I don't want to spend more than five hundred."

"Pinkie and Flutters are done," Kendall replied, in a tone nearly as awkward as mine, "Take them to find clothes and we'll meet you back here."

I sighed.

"Actually, we'll meet you in the food court," she laughed.

With that, Robby and I took off with Pinkie and Fluttershy, who thankfully kept all their questions about what Kendall had just told them to themselves. I thought for a minute, and decided Fluttershy and Pinkie would most likely be the cheapest of the six.

"Did you guys see any stores you liked?" I asked them.

"Candy store!" Pinkie shouted out.

I laughed, "Me too, Pinkie. But for once, we need to focus. Clothing stores."

"Oh um…," Fluttershy started, "I saw one that I think I liked… over there…"

I turned around to see Forever 21 and I cringed.

"Oh… we don't have to go there if you don't want to…,"

"No, no it's fine!" I perked up in reassurance, "I'm just not much for shopping in general. This is your day, Fluttershy. We can go wherever you want."

I happily lead the four into Forever 21, and I watched as the two girls looked around. "Two outfits each," I reminded them, "One pair of shoes. And if you find a coat that you like, feel free to get that too."

I let the two walk amongst the store on their own, and I sat next to Robby on a bench. After a while, Fluttershy came back with a long, yellow sweater that reached about her knees. She wore white leggings underneath. Pinkie came back with a light blue, long sleeve T-shirt, a pink puffy vest over the top of it, and a pair of white jeans.

We bought their items and headed down to the food court, speaking about our day as we did so. Pinkie couldn't seem to get over the war game. She liked all the running and hiding. Fluttershy was a little skeptical about it, but she admitted that she did have a bit of fun.

"Olly!" Pinkie shouted out, "Can we ride the carousel?"

Robby laughed, "Carousels involve riding plastic horses."

For this reason, I was going to say no, but the look plastered on Pinkie's face was begging me to say yes. I glanced over at Fluttershy, who seemed to have a small, hopeful grin on her face.

"Fine," I sighed, giving in, "But I call the dragon."


	5. Chapter 5

"Watch as I work my gypsy magic, eye of a newt and cinnamon," I absentmindedly sing to myself as we pull into my drive way. This makes Robby chuckle and shake his head. I looked back to see how the girls were doing, and they all had looks of wonder planted on their faces. Fluttershy's eyes were thankfully open now, but she still kept a soft hold on Rarity's shoulder.

"Were here," I announced, nearly kicking the door open.

"You'll be back with Twilight an' the others later, right?" Applejack asked Robby before stepping out of the car.

"Yep, gimme about an hour," Robby replied, "And don't let Olly here do anything stupid while I'm gone."

I stuck my tongue out at him, and made my way to the door. Stepping inside, I was surprised to see a lack of mess from when the other three were here alone. I was sure Pinkie would have caused some sort of tornado in here, but there was surprisingly no such thing.

"Huh," I shrugged, walking up to the table.

"What're we to do with all these bags, darling?" Rarity stepped in the door as well, followed by the other two.

"Just put them in your rooms," I yawned, "We'll find some good closet space later."

I sat at the table and carelessly pulled my laptop toward me. As much as I hated to admit it, I did have homework I needed to get done. I sighed, if it were anyone else in my house, I would've pretended to blow it off. But since I didn't know how long these girls were going to be here, I had to be responsible. I couldn't just pretend I didn't care, and then do it late at night when everyone was asleep.

I logged onto our school's "communication site" to see what I had to do. It was like a Facebook for school related purposes. I groaned when I read over the history homework, and realized I had a lot more to do than I had originally thought. Blowing off the history for just a little bit longer, I started my math homework. It wasn't that I didn't like history; it was probably one of my favorite classes. I just didn't like all the work that had to go into it.

"So what'chya doin?" Applejack asked once she was done putting her clothes away.

"Homework," I sighed.

She sat down in the chair next to me, "Is the school system here like the one in Equestria?"

I thought for a minute, "Yes and no, I think. From what I can tell, Equestrian school focus majorly on finding your special talent and building the skills needed for it. Since humans don't exactly HAVE special talents, we have to be in school a lot longer, and we all have to learn the same curriculum."

"What'ya do in school if yer not learnin' about your special talents?"

"We get more advanced than fillies in Equestria," I explained, "While fillies just learn basics of every subject in order to help them figure out their special talent, we go beyond the basics in every subject. For example, in math I'm guessing the Equestrian schools just briefly touch on simple division unless their talent has to do with mathematics."

Applejack nodded slowly, and I turned my computer toward her, "Well, in human schools, most of us learned simple division in second or third grade. That was seven years ago, for me. Now we're working on algebra."

Applejack stared in confusion at the letters and numbers jumbled together in order to make up a polynomial. I watched her in amusement for a minute, before looking at the clock.

"Oh, sorry, you guys hungry?" I said, standing up.

"Oh… I can wait a bit if you're busy…" Fluttershy said, coming down the stairs.

"Nope, I insist. It gives me a bit of procrastination time, anyway," I laughed, "I'll just make something real quick so it'll be ready when the others get here."

I rushed into the kitchen and began making something. It was beginning to grow hard to think of things to make that didn't contain meat. Eventually, I thought of something that sounded okay. I got to work, and Rarity and Fluttershy sat at the counter as I did so, talking amongst themselves. Applejack stared at my computer, every so often going back to my math homework and staring at it in that same confused fashion.

"So what do you guys think of Robby and Kendall?" I asked the two sitting at the counter.

"Robby's… well…," Rarity tried to think of the right words.

I chuckled a bit, turning to Fluttershy, "Any opinions?"

"He… likes to laugh," Fluttershy said with a small grin.

"Exactly," Rarity perked up, "He seems to laugh at every situation, no matter what it is."

I shrugged a bit, "I think you would too."

"Whatever do you mean?"

I paused for a minute, trying to find a way to explain this world subtly, "To make a long explanation short… this world sucks. A lot. We both hate it."

Everyone in the room seemed to raise an eyebrow at this. I guess that was what I had expected, since I had tried to make their stay so far as peaceful and nice as possible.

"Trust me, if more people were like us, the world would be fantastic. But they're not. Human nature is terrible, and the society we have here is awful."

"But," Applejack stood, joining our conversation, "I don't understand why this makes ya'll laugh at everythin'."

I smiled, "Because once you've lived with it this long, it's the only thing that really keeps you going. Why bother getting upset over the world's problems? People like Robby and I find it a lot easier to just laugh it off, and focus on the good things."

"What… what do other people do?" Fluttershy asked.

I thought for a minute, "Well, it all depends on who you are. You have people like my girlfriend and her sister, who spend a lot of their time trying to fix the problems… I kind of admire them for that."

"Why don't you try to fix things?" Rarity asked.

I sighed, this was where things got complicated, "A lot of reasons… For one I'm defiantly not as outgoing as those two. I find it a lot harder to be around a bunch of people than they do."

I paused for a second, and the three girls stared at me with what looked like curiosity.

"There's that… and my parents are kind of strict about what I do and don't do. They don't notice as many problems as we do, because they were raised not to."

Things were starting to get uncomfortable for me, as we were going into topics that I wasn't exactly ready to get into yet. I also didn't really want to explain politics and beliefs to them; that could take all night. I decided to try and change the subject.

"Anyway, what are your thoughts on Kendall?"

I could tell they didn't want to drop the subject yet, but they all seemed to go along with it anyway.

"She's… really nice," Fluttershy grinned.

"She did seem to get a bit angry at you when you started that game, though," Rarity pondered for a minute.

I laughed, "It wasn't real anger; probably more annoyance than anything. If she were actually angry with me, she wouldn't have played along."

Just then, I heard the door slam open and Pinkie bounced into the room.

"Hiya, bunny!" she bounced up to me.

"'Bunny'?" I replied emotionlessly.

"Yea!" she shouted, "While we were waiting for Robby, we found someone who said she knew you! She also said that she used to call you 'bunny'!"

My eyes widened a bit, "What was her name?"

At this time, all the others walked in through the door, including Kendall and Robby.

"We saw Ruby," Kendall clarified.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

"What's the matter?" Twilight asked suspiciously.

"No, sorry," I replied quickly, "I just thought you ran into my sister. THAT would be hard to explain."

"I thought your sister was in coll… collage?" Rainbow Dash perked up.

"College," I sighed, "And not her, the other one. I have two older sisters."

This took them all by surprise, even Robby and Kendall a bit, since I didn't talk about my other sister often.

"Why isn't she here?" Fluttershy asked.

"Because she's old," I laughed, "She's an adult now. Has a husband and two kids of her own. They live in their own house over by the mall… I think."

"You think?" Applejack asked.

"They just got a new house," I clarified, a bit embarrassed, "I haven't exactly gotten a chance to go over there yet…"

Dropping the subject, I walked over to the stove and turned off the heat, "I made dinner if you guys are ready for it."

"Whoa!" Kendall shouted, mock surprised, "Let me guess, microwavable stuff?"

"No," I stuck my tongue out at her, "I thought I'd impress you all today. But seeing as you're not interested…"

We both laughed and everyone crowded around the table. It was a strange sight, to be honest. We didn't even eat at the table when my parents were home. It was something last night, since the girls were just arriving, but it was just now hitting me how different my life was becoming with them here.

"Did you get that homework done that you were talking about yesterday?" Twilight suddenly asked, like and invisible punch in the stomach.

"I… started it…" I mumbled.

"Olly…" Kendall started in a familiar tone. Usually one she used before some kind of lecture.

"Sorry I got busy," I shrugged, not knowing whether or not I wanted to put on the careless act with the girls around.

"Do your homework!" Kendall shouted, as she had done so many times before. I rolled my eyes. This would usually be the point where I'd try to hold back a laugh and make up pointless excuses to defend myself, but the girls around made me a bit nervous.

"I did start it," I repeated, "I just got a little side tracked."

Kendall raised an eyebrow at this, obviously confused by my unusual response. I simply made eye contact with her for a second, and then got back to eating.

"You know what I don't have?" Robby butted in excitedly, "Homework!"

"Shut up," Kendall replied, pushing him to the side.

The girls seemed a bit confused, so I decided to clarify, "Kendall and I go to the international academy. The academics are more difficult than most schools, and it's a lot more work. Robby used to go to the same school, but he dropped out and went back to our normal high school a couple months ago."

"Why would you want to do that?" Twilight turned to Robby, almost sounding offended.

Robby shrugged, "I didn't have the motivation. I loved the school and the people, but if I didn't drop out soon I was gonna fail out anyway."

"And now he has to suffer the horrors of Romeo High School!" I raised a fist dramatically.

"H-horrors?" Fluttershy stuttered.

"Yes, horrors!" I growled, and then giggled a bit, "It's not THAT bad. The academics are good enough; it's the people that are the problem. Romeo is a prime example of how much our society sucks."

"Not even, really," Robby pondered, "Powell was the brutal one."

Kendall and I both retracted at the name of our middle school. I was a little over dramatic, yea, but there was a part of it that was serious.

"Yea… that place had ACTUAL horrors," Kendall laughed a bit.

The girls seemed genuinely concerned, but the three of us just laughed it off.

"Don't worry," I reassured, "Done of us have to touch that place again. As long as I can help it, never again."

"Never again," Kendall ended up repeating in a silly, ominous voice.

Robby looked up at the clock, "Kendall, I think we better get going."

Kendall nodded and the two of them stood, saying their goodbyes to everyone in the room. She walked up to me and ruffled my hair a bit. Robby did the same. Then they waved one last goodbye and walked out the door together.

"Well, they seem to be nice people," Twilight concluded.

I nodded, "So, you guys met Ruby today?"

"Yea," Rainbow Dash replied, "Don't really know where she came from; she just kinda showed up."

I laughed, "That sounds like Ruby."

"How exactly do you know this 'Ruby'?" Rarity asked passively.

"She's my best friend," I replied casually, "Known her ever since I moved here. We go back a while."

"Um… I have a question…," Fluttershy slowly looked up at me.

"Hm? What is it, Fluttershy?"

"Are… Kendall and Robby… well…"

I chuckled a bit, "Yes, Kendall and Robby are dating."

They all seemed to nod, satisfied by my response. There was a while of silence as we all sat, eating a little more but mostly just staring off into space. Or at least, that's what I was doing. The girl's talked quietly amongst themselves, but I wasn't present enough to listen to their conversations.

"You want help clearing the table, Olly?" Rainbow Dash asked, snapping me out of my trance.

"Nah, I got it," I yawned, "Oh, and then I'm going to retreat to my room for a while. I got a couple things I need to do."

"Like what?" Twilight perked up curiously.

"History homework, math homework, lit homework, new My Little Pony episode," I mumbled the last part a bit.

"What does My Little Pony have to do with homework?" Twilight asked skeptically.

"Nothing to most people," I shifted uncomfortably, "But I'm part of the analysis section of the fandom… so I need to watch the episode a couple times."

"Analysis?"

"Yea," I responded, "I don't really get into it as much as the rest of the section. I don't make videos with my OC or anything… thought I've thought about it. I just post reviews on a blog though, just to get myself started."

I sat thinking about analysis for a while. I guess it wouldn't be appropriate to say that anypony is out of character anymore… since all this actually happened. In fact, what was there to analyze anymore? This thought made me extremely uncomfortable, and I decided to just pretend it was all made up while I was watching. That way I could analyze like normal.

"You guys gonna be okay down here?" I asked them quietly.

"Yea, we'll probably jus watch TV nd' go to bed," Applejack replied, smiling as she did so. I couldn't help but think she did this in order to make me feel better.

I couldn't help but laugh out loud a couple of times. The new episode was 'Somepony to Watch over Me', and the humor of the episode was so good. Admittedly, the plot was a little strange, but the humor made up for it.

"Olly?" I heard the door opening.

"Ah," I was a bit startled. I looked over at the clock to see that it was two in the morning, "Rarity, what are you doing up?"

She sat on the edge of the bed, looking a slightest bit concerned, "I was only up for a second. However, I decided to see if Twilight had said was true."

I raised an eyebrow at this; unsure of what she was talking about. Then I remembered the conversation we had at the mall earlier, and how she said Twilight had found me awake in the middle of the night.

"Yea, it was," I shrugged, "I don't remember denying it."

"Also… do you have any… well… health concerns?" she asked quietly.

"Health problems?" I felt a knot in my stomach, "Well…"

"I found this in the bathroom," she pulled my inhaler out of her shirt pocket. My eyes widened and I felt the knot in my stomach get a little tighter.

"I'm sorry," she looked sincerely apologetic; "I didn't mean to look through your belongings. I was just looking for a comb, I assure you. But when I found this, and remembered how tired you got in the changing rooms as the mall… well…,"

I sighed, "Fine, you got me… I have asthma. It's nothing you have to worry about though, really. I've been okay at taking care of things myself. It's not that horrible of a condition if you know how to take care of it."

"You're quite sure?" she asked sadly.

I sighed again, "Yea, I know what I'm doing. I may look like I'm being reckless sometimes, but I'd never do anything I wasn't sure I could handle."

"Well… alright," she finally sighed, "But still, why are you up this late in the night?"

"I don't know," I replied casually, "Like I said before, I don't sleep much, anyway. It's not like this is unusual for me."

"Really…" she pondered quietly.

"I think it might be side effects from the meds…," I thought out loud, "My dad said it was supposed to help me sleep, but I don't think that's working very well."

"What… 'meds'?" Rarity asked.

"Oh," I mentally hit myself for saying that out loud, "I'm on stimulants and a couple other things. Nothing to get freaked out over; just a bit of ADD and breathing problems."

"Breathing problems?" she raised an eyebrow.

"Yea," I replied simply, not wanting to get into it anymore, "Again, nothing major you'd have to worry about."

She reluctantly nodded and let out a small yawn, "If you're quite sure…"

"Positive," I reassured, "I've been okay this long on my own, haven't I? Trust me on this."

"Alright then… I'll just be heading back to bed then…"

"Okay, goodnight Rarity. Sleep well, and wake me up earlier this time if I'm asleep when you wake up, okay?"

She seemed to pout at this, but sighed all the same, "Alright Olly. Goodnight."

"Night, Rarity,"

With that she shut the door, and I was left to think over the conversation that just played out. I really wished they would stop worrying so much; if anything, I should be worrying about them. They're the ones that are in another world with no way to get back.

I turned to my computer to see a couple of Skype messages from Kendall. I thought about reading them, but decided against it. It could wait until tomorrow. I walked over to my desk and starting writing about the new episode, hoping to have it done by the morning.


	6. Chapter 6

"Hey, Olly?" I heard a soft voice ask.

I groaned and turned over to meet with a pair of soft, light blue eyes. I blinked a few times, and then tried to sit up. The eyes seemed to get nervous, and I was softly pushed back down onto my pillow.

"It's okay, you don't have to get up," the soft voice said, "We just wanted to let you know we were going for a walk. Is that okay?"

It took me a second to comprehend what she had said, and then I slowly nodded, "That's fine… stay away from the side of town I found you guys in."

"Okay, we'll stay away from there."

"Promise?" I asked weakly. I knew I sounded like a kid somewhere, but I was too tired to care. Plus, this was Fluttershy. She wouldn't care either.

She seemed to laugh to herself for a second, and then took my hand, "I promise. We'll be back soon."

I slowly nodded again and closed my eyes until I heard her leave the room. I laid there for a second, trying to think about what had just happened. I was aware of it, but I wasn't really conscious of anything that was said or done. I sat up and looked at my clock; 9 AM. At least it was a little earlier than yesterday.

I stood and peeked out my window to see the six girls walking down my driveway, Rainbow Dash leading the way. I watched them closely for a second, until I noted that they turned in the opposite direction from the forest where I had found them. I breathed a sigh of relief and lay back down.

I was lost in thought for quite a while, much of which I can barely recall. It was a natural thing for me; becoming completely lost in thought as if I was dreaming, then waking up and not recalling a single part of it.

I looked at the clock again; 9:30. I yawned and stood up, deciding I couldn't spend all day laying there. Normally I wouldn't think twice about it, but I had six girls in my house now. I needed to get my life on track. I went to the bathroom and took my various medications, putting a stimulant patch on my side, and then I went downstairs.

I had to admit, it was a little strange being home alone again. It wasn't like I wasn't used to it, but the silence of the house was something I hadn't heard in a little while. I wasn't exactly sure what to do with it. I glanced down; watching my cat come out from under the couch.

"Hey," I greeted softly, kneeling down to her, "Haven't seen you in a while… how long have you been hiding?"

As far as I could tell, she was pretty healthy looking, meaning she had at least been eating all this time. I wondered if any of the girls had noticed the cats, which all seemed to hide whenever there was company. There were three of them total, and this one happened to be the most shy of the three. The other two were probably in my parent's room.

I had rescued this one from the deadly grip of apartment regulations. My friend was no longer allowed to keep her, as the apartment complex only allowed one pet per family. She was barely a two-month kitten then. Now, she was nearly full grown. As a result, she kind of lived in my room, and followed me out whenever I left it.

I lay down on the floor, allowing her to walk up onto my chest and observe me from there. It wasn't an abnormal thing; I liked to lie on the floor. I wasn't really sure why she always stared at me like that. When I was younger, I always used to suspect that she was checking if I was alive. The thought made me laugh and I decided to play dead for a second, just to see what she'd do. Suddenly, I felt a furry paw on my nose. I laughed again and sat up, causing her to jump back onto the floor.

Just then, I heard the door opening, and the cat ran back under the couch to hide. I sighed and tried to call her back out, but to no avail.

"What are you doing?" Twilight asked curiously.

"Calling the cat," I sighed, "She came out for a little bit."

"Oh, you have a cat?" Fluttershy's eyes seemed to brighten as she walked in the door. I smiled a bit.

"Three," I replied, "They're not a fan of company, especially if I don't let them know about it before-hand."

At least, that's what I liked to think. I flashed back to the many pep-talks I had given the cats before I left to go on some adventure, or before someone decided to come over. I shook my head; maybe I really was lonely.

Fluttershy knelt down by my side and peered under the couch, only to be met with two green eyes staring back at her.

"What's her name?" she asked softly.

"Ashley," I yawned, lying back down onto the floor, "I didn't name her, but my friend's mom used to say that her full name was Ash Lee IV… because of her grey fur."

I closed my eyes for a minute, enjoying the comfort of my wooden living room floor. I almost was lost in thought again, until I suddenly felt a furry paw on my nose.

I opened my eyes to see the cat, once again sitting on my chest. Fluttershy was staring at us in silent bewilderment, as did the rest of the girls. I laughed.

"I'm alive," I laughed, sitting up once again. Ashley hopped back down to the floor and sped back under the couch. I sat there laughing again, and Fluttershy slowly joined in.

"So, what did ya do while we were gone?" Applejack asked casually.

I looked up at her, my eyebrows raised. Something was telling me that the stimulant hadn't kicked in just yet, for my thoughts were running at a thousand miles per hour.

"I laid on the floor," I replied simply, "And talked to the cat."

"That's it?"

I took me a second to understand the question, but then I nodded, "That's it."

I quickly stood up and went to sit at the counter, trying to collect all of my thoughts.

"Where'd you guys go?" I asked, my head becoming a little steadier.

"These guys wanted to explore the neighborhood a bit," Rainbow Dash explained, "So I just lead them down the path we went running on the other night."

I nodded, silently thanking them for not nearing the bad side of the neighborhood. I looked out the window to see that it was actually rather nice outside. Still snow on the ground, but the sun was shining brightly.

"It cold out there?" I asked, not taking my eyes off of the window.

"This world is REALLY cold," Pinkie shouted over-dramatically, shivering as she did so. I raised an eyebrow and looked over at them.

"It wasn't very cold yesterday… at least fifty degrees."

"Well, I wouldn't say we're used to higher temperatures… be we do lack a… well… extra coat, for lack of a better word." Rarity stuttered.

I was extremely confused for a little while, until I realized that ponies had fur; something that humans had only excuses for.

As if my instinct, I walked over to the thermostat and turned it up a couple notches, making sure the room was warm enough for them. I saw Twilight shake her head and walk over to the table, while everyone else went about their daily thing. I went into the kitchen and grabbed an apple, and then went over and plopped myself down on the couch. Fluttershy was still at my feet, softly staring at the cat hiding underneath me.

"So," I started, "What do you guys wanna do today?"

"What do ya usually do on Sundays?" Applejack asked, coming and sitting by my side.

"Oh, I usually just lay around," I replied sheepishly, "Play video games and such…"

"I was wondering about video games recently," Twilight perked up from her spot at the table, "What are they, exactly?

"Oh boy," I sighed, knowing that this would involve explaining a lot of technology, "I can tell you what they are basically, but technically I'd have a harder time explaining. Robby's coming over later… he's better with that kinda thing than I am."

* * *

I sat by as Robby explained the programming of video games to Twilight, and whoever else was pretending to be interested. I fiddled with a couple wires, attempting to hook up my laptop to my flat screen and sound-system in the basement.

"There are a lot of counsels," I heard Robby explain, "But most games are also available on PC, which stands for Personal Computer."

"I wouldn't say 'available'," I laughed, "I mean; Steam does a good job with most of them, but the rest you have to illegally download."

Twilight's eyes got wide at the word 'illegal', to which both Robby and I laughed.

"It sounds bad," Robby said while laughing, "But I don't know a single person who doesn't. No one really cares. If they do, then they just make it harder to download the game. There are some I haven't managed to get my hands on."

"Yea, even I do it," I added in, finally finishing my set-up, "It's not too hard most of the time."

I logged into my laptop and opened up Steam, allowing Robby to log into his account, as he had more games than I did. The list of games lit up the side of the screen, and the girls stared at it, wide eyed.

"What do you wanna play?" Robby asked, turning to me.

This was a surprisingly difficult question. I didn't want to play anything too brutal, as the girls weren't used to that kind of graphic activity yet. Nothing too dark either…

"Ah screw it," I finally sighed, "Portal 2. If they get confused, we can explain it."

Robby raised an eyebrow for a second, but then shrugged and opened up Portal. Throughout the game play, there were constant questions coming from the girls. Robby answered most of the technical questions, whether they were about video games in general or what they were doing at Aperture Science. I answered any questions about the plot, analysis being my passion.

After a while, I felt like they were beginning to get used to the atmosphere of the game, laughing along with Robby and I at all the jokes. A few of them seemed more into it than others, for example Rainbow laughed harder than Rarity and Fluttershy most of the time. It probably just wasn't their thing.

By the time we got to the final boss battle, it was already early afternoon. We all had a different bag of some kind of snack in front of us, and we all watched intensely as Robby battled it out with Wheatley.

"I think he's gonna blow!" Rainbow shouted, more into the game than any of the other girls. Other than Pinkie, that is, who could hardly contain her excitement throughout the battle. Before long, the ending scene was triggered, and the credits began playing. Both Robby and I enthusiastically sang along with GlaDOS, and the girls laughed as we did so.

"You've got your short, sad life left. That's what I'm counting on."

"I'll let you get right to it, now I only want you gone."

"That song is surprisingly dark," Twilight said, but still had a smile on her face.

"That's what makes it great," I replied, "its humorously dark. Kinda like the whole game, actually. I've played a lot darker."

"What other games do you have?" Rainbow asked excitedly.

"Darker?" Twilight asked.

"A lot," Robby said, "But I think I'd better get going. I've got errands to run. Olly, do you need to do anything?"

"It can wait till tomorrow," I yawned, "I'll do it after school."

"Ya have school tomorrow?" Applejack asked.

"Well yea…" I said awkwardly, "Every Monday through Friday unless they say otherwise."

"Hey yea," Robby perked up, "They don't look older than high schoolers. Are we enrolling them in school?"

I shuffled uneasily, "I'm not sure. I mean, first we'd have to somehow make records of them… and then we'd have to apply them to the IAM and see if they get in."

"Right, cuz you don't want them going to Romeo," Robby pondered.

"Why not?" Pinkie asked, "You go to Romeo!"

Robby laughed, "Yea, but it's easy and I hate it."

"Like I said yesterday," I added, "The people there are awful. I'd rather you not go to school at all then be exposed to that."

"Like those people from the other day?" Pinkie asked again, innocent as ever.

"Y-yea," I stuttered, "Yea, they go to Romeo."

They all had looks of concern now, all except Pinkie of course, who just looked plain confused. I could tell both Applejack and Rarity wanted to say something, but apparently Robby got this as well, and quickly stood up in order to change the subject.

"You shouldn't wait," Robby blurted out. I raised an eyebrow along with everyone else.

"I mean," he gathered his thoughts, "Would you guys be okay alone here for a couple hours? I'm gonna take Olly to run some errands. If we're going to enroll you guys in school we'd have to start tomorrow, which means we wouldn't have time to get these done."

I blinked a couple times, but then understood where he was going with this.

"Yea, okay," I replied, standing up along with him, "Will you guys be okay? I would take you guys along but Robby's car isn't huge, and it's not like we're going anywhere for a long time like the mall."

It took them a second to process this new development, but then Twilight slowly nodded her head, "I think we'll be okay. Will you be gone long?"

"Nah, I don't have too much I need to do," I shuffled my feet, "A couple hours at the most. You can call if you need anything."

"Call?"

I sighed, "Robby, hold up a few minutes. I'm gonna teach them how to use the house phone."

He nodded and headed up the stairs while I walked over to the counter and grabbed the house phone. It was relatively easy to explain; just pressing the numbers until they heard the dial tone. I demonstrated by calling my own cell phone, in which Pinkie's… or… Witchcraft Pinkie's… voice flooded the room. I quickly hung up and the music stopped.

"So here's my number," I said as I wrote down the digits on a piece of paper, and then stuck it on the basement fridge, "If you need ANYTHING, or think I've been out too long, just call."

"We got it, Olly," Applejack winked, "Go on, now. We got everythin' handled."

I smiled weakly, "Okay, see you guys later!" And with that, I walked up the stairs to meet Robby.

"Thanks for this, man," I sighed, breaking the silence as we drove down the freeway, "I think I might've needed this."

"No problem, you've got a lot to deal with," he replied simply.

"Yea… it's like a whole new family," I scratched my head, "It's amazing, sure. But it's like I have six kids to take care of. Man, I'm tired."

"They'll get better. I mean, they just got here. They'll get the hang of things."

"Yea, and they'll be forced to blend in even more if we end up enrolling them in school."

Robby turned to me a bit before looking back out the windshield, "I think we'd have to eventually. If the state finds out that there's six teenagers without records and not going to school, we're gonna have to deal with that."

I laughed, "Damn, it's been a while since I've had the government on my back."

He looked confused. "It was a long time ago," I said sheepishly, "Back when I lived down in Detroit. Let's just say I wasn't as chilled back then as I wanted to be."

"Understandable," he shrugged.

I stared out the window, thinking about the girls. It had only been two days, and I already felt like they were becoming a big part of my life. I had to watch over them. It made me a little nervous to think about, since apparently I could barely take care of myself. I was a professional babysitter, and an assistant student teacher at elementary schools, so I knew how to work with people, but this was different. These girls were from another world, plus they seemed a lot older than me. I don't know why that bugged me, but it was stressing me out.

"I think I know a way to get them records," Robby suddenly brought up, "It's risky though."

"As far as I can tell, it's the only option we've got," I turned to him.

"I've got a friend who's good with this kind of thing. All we need is information for them."

"Well," I thought out loud, "I doubt anyone would believe their names. As much as I hate to, I think we've gotta change them."

"Right… any ideas?"

"I want Twilight to be 'Tara'," I said immediately, "It's the name of her voice actress. I've heard so many different messed up names for Twilight. Tara is fine."

"Okay, one down," he nodded.

"Applejack… let's go with 'Jaclyn'. Or… 'Jackie' I guess," I hesitated, "And then… Rainbow… 'Robin'?"

"I like that one," Robby smiled, "Three more. And we should ask them their opinions on them when we got more."

"Good plan," I agreed, "Okay… Rarity… damn what to you say for Rarity?"

"R names…," Robby pondered, "uh…"

My eyes lit up with an idea, "Ruby? It fits her… but I already have a Ruby friend…"

"Hey, can't think of anything else so whatever. Ruby knows their ponies anyway, so around Ruby we can just call them by their real names."

"Okay, I can deal with that," I nodded, "Two more… Fluttershy and Pinkie…,"

I had to think about these two for a while. I had seen so many different humanized Pinkie's named 'Patience'. It was a good name, but I didn't think it fit her at all. Sure, it was pretty ironic, but too ironic for me to call her.

"What about 'Promise'?" I suddenly blurted out, "Like… a Pinkie Promise."

"Hey, that's pretty good," Robby mused, "Now Fluttershy."

"Ugh," I groaned, wanting the process to end, "Animals… 'F' names… Ah! How about 'Fawn'! Like, a baby deer."

"Okay!" Robby agreed, "So we've got Tara, Robin, Jackie, Ruby, Promise, and Fawn."

"Perfect, now let's go get some food."

"Stop at the girlfriend's first?" Robby smiled.

"Okay," I laughed, "Let me call them up."

"Call Liz," Robby reminded, "Julia never answers her phone."

Before I knew it, we were in my girlfriend's basement playing stupid party games. I felt kinda bad leaving the girls at home to just be playing video games again, but they seemed like they were going to be fine.

"Ha! I win!" My girlfriend's sister, Liz, shouted ironically.

"Ah! That doesn't even make sense!" Robby shouted, exasperated.

"She's a cheater," Julia, my girlfriend, laughed.

Liz and Julia were pretty similar looking people. You could tell they were siblings, at least. Julia was beautiful, with short, bleached blonde hair similar to my own. Her eyes were pale blue and she had the body of a dancer. Liz was a little taller, being around the same age as Robby and Kendall. Her hair was also pretty short, but dyed blue… for now. She changed her hair color pretty often, actually. It was purple a couple weeks ago. Her eyes were a similar color to my own.

"Let's get going," Robby jumped up from the couch, "We still have things to do."

"Yea, okay," I said sorely, sticking my tongue out at Liz, who was still shouting about winning the game.

"Hey, wait," Julia pouted.

I giggled a bit and kissed her on the cheek, causing myself to blush, "See you tomorrow."

"Bye guys!" she shouted again as we walked upstairs and out the door to Robby's car.

Julia and I had been dating for a while now; a little over a year. We had been pretty good friends a little while before that, as well. I asked her out on the night after a school dance, when we were the only two of our friends that decided to go. It's been a pretty good ride since then.

"Ready to go home?" Robby asked, hopping back in the car.

"Yea, let's go. But I'm hungry," I complained, "Let's pick something up."

And so, we did, and quickly started driving back home. I opened the door to my house to reveal, surprisingly, nothing insane. Everyone was simply going about their business; talking to each other, eating what they could find, and watching television.

"Hey, Bunny!" Pinkie shouted as I shut the door behind me, "Did'ja get all the things you need? Did Robby leave already? Did you have fun?"

"Yes to all three questions," I smiled, cringing at the old nickname.

I looked up at the clock to see that it was nearly nine thirty. I usually got back a little earlier, but I've also been back later so it wasn't a big deal. Just something I didn't really do during the winter that often.

"We thought about calling you," Twilight admitted, "It was getting pretty late."

"Nah, this time is pretty normal for me," I yawned.

"But ya have school tomorrow, right?" Applejack perked up from her spot on the couch next to Rainbow Dash, "Shouldn't ya be getting' to bed soon?"

I laughed a bit and shook my head, "Probably, but I don't think any of us actually go to bed this early. This school is a lot of work, like I said before, and most kids are still up doing their homework right now. Will be all night."

"It's THAT much work?" Rarity gasped.

"Not really," I laughed again, "But we've also mastered the art of procrastination. They probably only started it half an hour ago."

"Did you finish all of yours?" Twilight asked skeptically; she most likely picked up on my careless habits from the way Kendall addressed it yesterday.

"Pretty much," I shrugged, "I have to read a thing, but other than that I'm done. Oh, that reminds me! Robby said he might have a way to get you guys legal records."

I explained to them what Robby had told me earlier, taking a spot on the couch next to Applejack. I also told them what names we had picked out for them, hoping they'd like them so I wouldn't have to think about changing them.

"Jackie, huh?" Applejack mused, "I like the ring a' that."

"I tried to have them all sound at least a little bit similar to your real names," I explained, "When that was harder, I tried to think of things you were interested in."

"How'd you think of 'Tara'?" Twilight asked curiously.

I blushed a bit, "I thought of it because… well when we all thought you were just cartoon characters, we had thought that a women named Tara Strong gave you your voice. She actually sounds pretty similar to you, so I guess it makes sense that they picked her. Still though… weird to think it's not actually her."

"Tara Strong?"

I smiled, "She's my favorite voice actress… along with Grey DeLisle. If all cartoons are real, though, I'm not sure how real of a job they actually have…"

"Oh! Oh! Who voiced me!" Pinkie asked excitedly.

I laughed a bit, "This is actually the funny part. They claimed that there were only four voice actresses total. You were voiced by Andrea Libman… but so was Fluttershy."

Rainbow Dash burst out laughing, "Those two? Having the same voice?"

"You and Applejack were both voiced by Ashleigh Ball," I snapped back.

She looked shocked for a second, but then began laughing again, her hand clenching her stomach as she did so.

"How could anypony be that stupid?" she laughed.

"AnyBODY," Twilight reminded, joining in the laughter a bit.

"Was I voiced by Tara Strong as well, then?" Rarity giggled.

"Nah," I laughed, "Tabitha St. Germain. Of course, she's also been in every other cartoon in the world."

We laughed about this for a little while longer, and then settled down and watched TV while exchanging occasional sly remarks to each other about whatever we were watching. I could honestly say that they just felt like really good friends to me. I could get used to this really fast.

"Olly," Applejack yawned around midnight, "I think it's time for y'all to get to bed."

"Lame," I complained, but agreed all the same. They were going to bed too, after all, and I wouldn't want to keep them up with all my racket downstairs. We all said our good nights, and then I made my way to my room.

"Hey, Olly?" Applejack suddenly said from behind me. I jumped; I hadn't realized she had followed me up here.

"What's up, Applejack?" I smiled weakly.

"I was just thinkin'," She started shyly, "Well, I think we're all jus' worried about ya. I jus' wanted to say… I meant what I said the other day. We're still here for ya. You can talk to us 'bout anythin'."

I put a hand on her shoulder, "Thanks Applejack… but really, you don't have anything to worry about. I'm okay."

"Okay…," she agreed quietly. I was expecting her to go back down the stairs at this point, but she followed me into my room. I raised an eyebrow at her.

"Ya think I could sleep up here tonight?" she asked, almost sounding like a child.

I chuckled, "Yea, hold on a sec."

I took hold of my couch and unlocked it, revealing it to be a futon. She had her eyebrows raised as she watched me make up a bed for her on the other side of my room.

"There," I concluded, "Sorry that took a second."

"No problem," she smiled, sitting herself on the bed, "Thanks, sugarcube. Goodnight."

I grinned, "Night Applejack."


	7. Chapter 7

I felt a soft hand rest lightly on my shoulder before quickly retracting. I can't say I was completely awake, but I was enough to feel what was going on. My bed felt abnormally cold, and there was defiantly someone standing over me. I considered opening my eyes, but they obviously retracted for a reason. So I waited.

"Oh Sugarcube," I heard a soft voice listen, "You've done nothin' but give to us. How come we can't do anythin' but worry sick about you?"

I wanted to say something. That was a question I didn't want to hear. I wanted to sit up and tell her differently, but something compelled me to keep my eyes closed.

"Well," she chuckled, "At least I'm worryin' 'bout you an' not about gettin' back to Equestria. That's somethin' right?"

I nearly smiled at this, but stopped myself from doing so. I was worried about her the most, since she had her family and orchard back in Equestria. I was rather worried about her getting homesick, but this was an improvement I think.

"Ya wouldn't mind, right?" she asked quietly.

I was confused by this for a second, but then I felt a little extra weight on the space next to me on the bed. I mentally sighed a bit.

"If anythin', I'll jus' tell ya I was worryin' about Applebloom. You'll understand that," she proceeded to justify her actions to herself. I suddenly got an idea. I was going to hate myself for this later, but I just had to.

"It's okay," I whispered quietly, "Goodnight, Applejack. Sleep well."

There was a long, awkward silence. It took all I had not to burst out laughing. I didn't want to ruin things for her, so I didn't.

"…Goodnight Olly," she seemed to chuckle. Then I felt her turn over, probably to get to sleep. I smiled and attempted to go to sleep as well.

I sighed, staring at my paper and every so often glancing up at the clock. I was in my last class of the day; literature. I will admit it was my favorite class. I enjoyed writing and analyzing things, as made obvious by how often I analyze My Little Pony. But this time, My Little Pony was the problem. I was worried about them being alone at home for so long.

"Hey, that's a good choice in paper," The kid next to me, Matt, commented.

"What?" I asked, his statement snapping me out of my daze.

"Your paper," he repeated, pointing at the blank sheet of lined paper placed in front of me, "The lines are a lot thicker than mine. It'll be easier to write a full page. Nice choice."

It took me a few minutes to process what sounded like a complement, but I nodded at him all the same. "Thanks…" I replied slowly. Why were people intrigued by such strange and typical things?

I glanced up at the clock again, just wanting to leave the room. Matt was getting on my nerves, as he always did with his senseless analogies and out of context commentary on whatever we were doing. I was tired of the day, annoyed by the people, and I just wanted to get home.

"Alright, have a good day!" My teacher, Mrs. Demay, shouted in her usual loud voice.

I breathed out a sigh of relief and carelessly shoved my piece of paper into my backpack. Finally, I could go home and get things set up. We had decided that Robby would come pick us up a little while after we got out of school. Then we would meet at his 'friend's' house and set up documents for all six of the girls. After that, it would just be a matter of getting them into the school.

"You riding the bus?" I asked my friend, Ryan, as I walked out of the classroom.

Ryan was one of my very best friends; one who I normally spent the majority of my time with during school. He was rather tall, with dirty blonde hair and greenish eyes. He really, REALLY enjoyed fashion. He often wore colored skinny jeans and different colored converse to match. He also liked to wear vests.

"No, I have to stay after for band," he sighed, pulling some music and his flute out of his backpack, "Until, like, four."

"Ew," I laughed, "Good luck, man."

I proceeded to exit the school, waving goodbye to anyone who wanted it, and kissing my girlfriend on the cheek before pushing the doors open and striding to my bus. I got on and there was Kendall sitting towards the back, a book in her hands.

The bus ride was rather uneventful; the two of us talking about the new My Little Pony episode and some other things that came up. Despite the dramatic change in our status quo recently, things were pretty normal. Of course, they probably wouldn't be for a while once the girls got into school, but I chose to push that thought out of my mind for now.

About an hour and a half later, we both got off the bus and began walking to our homes. We usually walked together for a little bit, seeing as her house was on the way to mine, but she usually wasn't around for very long before turning the corner.

I stared down at my shoes as I trudged along the dark, dirty sidewalk. One strap of my dark green backpack was slung over my shoulder. I growled as I looked at my surroundings; still half a mile to go.

Things were starting to go pretty normally for me, which was unexpected. Sure, once I got home I would once again be reminded of the dramatic change. But still; me walking home from school on a gloomy day like this, it seemed like nothing had ever happened.

This still on my mind, I turned the first corner I approached, not really paying attention to where it would take me. I kicked a couple pebbles on the road, not even bothering to worry about approaching traffic. There was too much to think about.

"Look who's back for more!" I suddenly heard a raspy voice laugh, "Hey, Pretty boy!"

I cursed to myself and started running. I should've been paying attention to where I was going. I didn't have the time to risk getting into something with them, especially if I came home with noticeable injuries like last time. The first thing I could think to do was run into the woods again. I flash of déjà vu came over me as I jumped over a couple logs and onto the muddy ground of the woods.

"Nice try," I heard someone say ominously as they proceeded to ram into me from my left side. I cursed to myself again as I fell to the ground, barely three feet away from the entrance of the woods.

The tall, redheaded kid grabbed me by my shirt and slammed my back into a nearby tree, pinning me there with his forearm.

"Thought you learned last time, Pretty boy," he laughed, "This road is our turf, not your stupid team's."

"Like we couldn't take you," I grumbled under my breath.

"What did you say, kid?" he got angrier, pinning me a little tighter to the tree. I didn't really want to piss him off too much right now, as I was alone and completely defenseless. Unlike him, I actually followed the rules and didn't fight outside of the game. I didn't say anything.

From there, he repeatedly slammed his fist into my nose. I heard a few light cracks, but chose not the yell out at all. I was stronger than this kid. One of the littler kids from that side of the neighborhood ran in and scraped his nails down my arm. Damn, why did kids enjoy scratching people so much?

Before I could realize what was happening, I was shoved to the ground, landing face first in the mud. I felt someone stomp on my right leg; hard. I couldn't help but grimace at this. I calmly waited there until they got bored, and I heard the footsteps walk out of the woods.

"Damn…" a sob escaped my throat. I shook my head, refusing to let myself cry.

"O-Olly?" I heard a soft voice call.

My eyes widened as I snapped up into sitting position and glanced over to who had said my name; Fluttershy. She looked terrified, down on her knees about a foot away.

"Fluttershy…" I stuttered, "What… what are you doing here?"

"T-this is the time you came home last time… so I just thought…"

I couldn't think of a way to respond, so I just quickly crawled up to her and pulled her into a hug. She hesitated for a minute, but then softly hugged me in return. I felt small tears hit my shoulder.

"Fluttershy…" I started, "I… told you not to come over here. Don't you remember?"

There was a small pause, and then she softly nodded. She didn't say anything else. I sighed and decided not to talk about it anymore until she calmed down. I was mentally hitting myself for allowing this to happen. Still, if I hadn't gone this way, they might've found her before they had found me. Everything happens for a reason, I guess.

"Fluttershy?" I decided to bring up, "Please don't come this way again. It's too dangerous… we're lucky I got here first."

She seemed to look up at me in shock when I said this. A little hint of anger lined her features. I raised an eyebrow as she stood tall over me.

"Lucky?" she whispered, "Olly, you can barely walk. How can you call that lucky?"

I tried to stand in order to prove her wrong, but a pain in my leg refused any weight and I ended up falling back onto my stomach, proving her case instead of mine.

"Because," I said nervously, "It's not just me, Fluttershy. It's anyone from my side of the neighborhood. Since they saw you talking to me, they associate you with me. They would've hurt you."

She seemed to blink in understanding for a minute, and then her expression softened into its natural, bashful state.

"We're lucky I got here before you did," I repeated, "I've dealt with this before. I don't want you to get hurt. Please, don't come over to this side of the neighborhood again."

After a while of staring at me, she slowly nodded and sat down next to me. We both sat there in silence for a while, not sure what to say to eachother anymore.

"W-we should get back home," Fluttershy said suddenly, turning to me.

"…Yea, yea we should," I agreed, clenching a tree with my one hand in order to help prop myself up.

"Oh, Olly," she perked up, "Don't try by yourself… Here, let me-,"

"It's okay, I can do it," I replied before she could offer any help. I hated accepting help. I wasn't really sure why, it just always bugged me. I couldn't tell if it was because I wanted to look strong, or I wanted to prove to myself that I was strong.

"No Olly, please-," she tried to repeat.

"Really," I said in a pained voice as I started to put weight on my leg, "I can do it."

I slowly let go of the tree and allowed myself to stumble forward onto my other leg. I felt pain shoot up and down my knees and I began to lose my balance.

"I got you," Fluttershy suddenly jumped in, catching my right arm in her own. I wanted to argue with her, but I would just be kidding myself. I obviously couldn't handle walking on my own. I sighed and allowed her to lace my arm around her shoulder, and we began to walk out of the woods.

"Fluttershy?" I heard a raspy voice call. I groaned; I had hoped that no one else would have to know about what happened.

"R-Rainbow Dash," Fluttershy was caught in shock, still holding onto my arm tightly, "W-what are you-,"

"You've been out here a while, so I came out to look… for…," Rainbow Dash stopped mid-sentence as soon as he caught sight of me. I guess it must've been pretty shocking; my nose was bleeding like crazy and there was mud covering my face. Also, I was heavily depending on Fluttershy to keep me balanced.

"Hey Dash…" I said awkwardly, not taking my gaze off the ground.

"…What happened, kid?" she asked in a surprisingly soft tone for her.

Before I could answer, Fluttershy beckoned her closer and whispered into her ear. This irked me a bit. Why couldn't she just say it out loud? I wasn't going to get upset or anything. It's not like I didn't already know.

Before I could butt in, Rainbow Dash was at my other side, offering much stronger support than Fluttershy. In fact, as soon as my arm was around her, the left side of my body was lifted off the ground, causing more weight to be put on my right foot.

"Ow… bad idea," I groaned.

At this, Rainbow Dash recoiled and allowed my left leg to fall to the ground. Luckily, I was able to swiftly avoid an injury to the other leg my landing on the side of my foot. Then, very slowly, the two girls switched sides and Rainbow Dash now had my right side off the ground.

"You think you can lift him, Fluttershy?" Rainbow Dash suddenly asked.

"No guys," I interrupted, "This is fine. I can handle this much."

Fluttershy simply gave me a small, stern look, telling me not to question her again. I wanted to argue again, but she lifted my left side off the ground slightly and continued walking.

I laughed a little, "You know, this is just like the one time I broke my foot."

"Broke?" Fluttershy stuttered, surprised.

"No, not from that," I clarified, "It was in November. I was skateboarding with Robby and my girlfriend, and I completely wiped out. They had to carry me like this to Robby's car."

"Skateboarding, huh?" Rainbow Dash mused, "I used to know a little filly who liked to scooter. She's always wiping out like that."

I laughed, "Scootaloo, right?"

"Oh yea…" Rainbow whispered, "The show…"

I quickly realized that I hit a sensitive point, so I went on another ramble, "Ya know, Scootaloo is one of my favorites. She's relatable."

"Really?" Rainbow suddenly seemed interested.

"Yea," I nodded, "Always has been. Man, I remember just waiting and begging for the one day you'd take her under your wing. They day it actually happened… oh man, I was partying."

She laughed at this, along with Fluttershy. I gave a successful smile as I realized that my distraction worked. I decided to keep going.

"Hey, come to think of it," I started, "I think you'd like skateboarding, Rainbow. It reminds me a lot of flying."

She paused for a few minutes, and then nodded, "That's why Scoots did it too. Since she couldn't fly and all…"

I agreed, "Want me to teach you when things dry up around here? It's one of my favorite things to do."

"Yea, I think that'd be cool," Rainbow smiled at me.

"Oh, but be careful," Fluttershy added in, "Don't break your foot again."

I growled, "One time! Dang… I hurt myself ONCE and suddenly everyone thinks I can't skate anymore. If Dash gave up every time she got hurt, she wouldn't be the fastest flier in Equestria."

Dash seemed happy with this statement, and began to add in herself, "Yea! That's right! No stupid injury was gonna stop me from flying. I am a future Wonderbolt, after all."

I smiled, happy to see Dash becoming the character I knew in the show. That told me she was starting to get used to things around here.

After a while of this talking, we arrived at my house and I opened the front door. Rainbow Dash decided she was going to tell the others about what happened, much to my dismay. Fluttershy then helped me up the stairs and into the bathroom. After much convincing, she allowed me to clean myself up on my own.

I pulled out a towel and started to blow my nose into it. It was a stupid thing to do, I know. But this nose bleed had lasted a while now, and I needed to make sure it wasn't broken. That meant I had to find the blood clot as soon as possible. Luckily, it showed up, and the bleeding started to slow down.

After this, I wetted another towel and began wiping the mud off of my face. I felt a pinch of pain once I got near my eye, and I cursed under my breath. I gently wiped the mud clear from that spot, only to be met with a swelling, red ring right around my eye.

"Come on!" I shouted without thinking. As a response to this, I heard a pair of footsteps quickly approaching the door.

"Olly?" I heard Twilight ask through the door, "You okay in there?"

"Yea, I'm fine," I groaned angrily.

"…can I come in?" she asked quietly.

I sighed, "Yea… come in…"

She opened the bathroom with a concerned look planted on her face. As soon as she caught sight of my eye, she grimaced and brought her face closer to mine to inspect it.

"Olly… this is a lot worse than last time," she said with nervous hesitation.

"I noticed," I replied bitterly.

She seemed to retract when I said this, and I sadly sighed, "I'm sorry… I'm just a little bit upset that this happened… I'll be over it in a few minutes."

"You don't have to 'be over it'," Twilight replied defensively, "You have every right to be angry."

I had trouble coming up with a response, "Maybe I do… but I don't want to be."

"But why—?" before Twilight could finish her question, the sound of the doorbell echoed throughout the house.

"Go get the door," I sighed, "I'll be down in a sec."

"You sure you still want to go?" she asked before exiting the bathroom, "You could stay here and rest if you wa-."

"No, I'm fine, Twilight," I quickly intercepted, "Might have a bit of a limp, but otherwise I'm fine."

"I heard Rainbow and Fluttershy had to carry you-,"

"They wanted to," I interrupted again, "I could've made it back with just a crutch. I'll be fine, don't worry about it. Go get the door."

With that, she left the bathroom and I was left to grumble to the silence.

"So, good news," Robby stated as he walked out of his 'friend's' office, "The files are set, and we just made the call to enroll you all in the International Academy."

All the girls cheered, and I made and enthusiastic fist-pump.

"Slightly less good news," Robby continued, "They'll probably be able to get in, but they'll still have to take the test."

"Oh damn," I muttered, "Should'a seen that one coming…"

"Test?" Twilight seemed to panic.

"Don't worry," Robby started, "You just have to have a basic understanding of Algebra one and writing."

"Algebra… isn't that the stuff you were doin' on yer computer the other day?" Applejack turned to me.

"Kinda… I'm in Algebra two so it was a little bit harder than what you'll have to do, but yea basically."

"What in the hay is Algebra?" Rainbow Dash asked.

Robby turned to me with his eyebrows raised and I sighed, "Equestrian schools only go up to fifth grade education."

"Well," he laughed, "This might be a problem."

"I think I'll be able to manage," Twilight perked up, "I studied a bit of Algebra when I was living in Canterlot… although I would need a little refresher."

"Well," I stood, "The only other choice is going to Romeo, so all we can do is… well, teach you I guess."

"Teach us?" Fluttershy asked.

"OOH! Are we gonna set up our own school? You can be our teacher and we'll bring lunch boxes and play on the playground and-," Pinkie bounced up and down excitedly.

"Something like that," I agreed, "But it'll be more like middle school so… no playgrounds."

"Awwwww," Pinkie groaned.

I rolled my eyes, "Maybe I can take you to the park after we're done every day…"

"HOORAY!" Pinkie immediately jumped up again.

"So how are we gonna handle this?" Robby asked, sitting down, "How long do you think this'll take?"

"When do they want them to come in and take the test?" I responded.

"By the end of next week," he admitted nervously.

"WHAT?" Twilight started panicking.

"Relax, Twilight," I reassured, "It'll be okay. If we split things up correctly… and Robby agrees to teach the majority of the math part, you guys should be okay by the end of the week. Maybe sooner if you guys work hard."

Robby started laughing, "This is great, cuz we don't even know how to work hard ourselves."

"But I think they can do it," I countered, "They just have to remember not to follow my example of procrastination."

"I tend to be against procrastination," Rarity announced, "Whenever I do, I nearly miss my deadlines."

"Exactly," I nodded, "They all just have to think like that, and we'll be okay."

"If only we could think like that, eh?" Robby continued laughing.

"Tell me about it," I sighed.

I sat at my own computer working on my homework, looking up every so often as Robby taught the girls the basics of Algebra. It had been about three days since their records were made, and we started teaching almost as soon as we got home. I had taught them everything I knew about writing, and most of them took to it like it was nothing. Twilight actually had a little trouble with it, but she was at the same level as the others pretty quickly. Now all that was left was the math. Surprisingly, they were catching on extremely quickly. Even Rainbow Dash was beginning to solve some of the harder problems with ease. I sighed; I wished I could be doing that kind of Algebra instead of what I was doing now.

"And I think that should about cover what would be on the test," I heard Robby conclude, "What do you think, Olly?"

I walked over to them and looked over the notes Twilight had taken, "I think so… but wouldn't they be entering as juniors like you did?"

"I think so… or at least, that's the age range we put on their records. Why do you ask?"

"Well," I chuckled, "Something tells me some of them wouldn't appreciate being put into Math Studies."

"What's Math Studies?" Twilight asked, almost proving my point.

"The easiest of the three math classes in the IB program," I explained, "It starts out with easier stuff than you knew before. Robby had to take it since he entered the school a lot later. Kinda like you guys."

"What do you suggest we do?" Rarity asked me.

"I suggest those who don't want to take math studies look over the geometry and algebra two textbooks. Just so you have an understanding. That way, you'll pass the math part of the test no problem and they might let you take SL."

"SL?" Twilight asked again, curiously.

"Standard Level," I explained, "There's Studies, SL, and HL. HL is high level. You're only allowed to take that class by special invitation from the teachers."

I saw a determined look in Twilight's eyes, and I sighed, "I'll go get the textbooks."

I began walking up the stairs, and I felt a sharp pain shoot up my right leg. I held in a groan, and continued my way up. For some reason, it began hurting even more. I took a long breath; I just had to get to my room and get off of it for a minute, and I'd be okay. I took another step, and I couldn't help but let out and audible grunt.

"…Olly," I heard a voice from the bottom of the stairs. I looked down to see Rarity staring up at me, looking very concerned.

"Oh," I tried to shake the pain out of my voice, "What's up?"

She didn't say anything, just stared up at me with those worried eyes. It made me uncomfortable. Suddenly, she was climbing up the stairs to my side. She firmly put a hand on my shoulder and sat me down on the steps.

"Rarity," I sighed, "I'm okay, really."

"Olly, I'm sorry but you're obviously NOT 'okay'," she said almost sternly.

This took me by surprise; I was trying to find the right words to say. Somehow, this caused me to nervously scoot away from her, and I felt my back hit the railing of the stairs. Her eyes widened at this.

"Olly?" she asked almost sounding nervous.

"I-I'm okay," I took a few breaths, "Really, Rarity. You don't have to worry about me like this. I know it looks bad but-."

Her expression once again turned emotionless, "No, darling. I'm sorry to say, but I really do."

"But I-"

"You can barely walk, Olly," she said sternly, "Surly you can agree this is a reason to be concerned."

"Yea, I know," I argued, "But really, I can-"

Before I could finish, she had pulled me into a hug. I was speechless; slowly bringing my arm up around her shoulders.

"Please… you don't need to pretend you're okay," she said softly, "Please just let us help you."

She pulled away from the hug and smiled at me, waiting for a response. I wasn't sure what to say. All I could do was stare back at her. Finally, after a long, awkward pause, I managed to stutter something out.

"…the books are on the shelf near my bed."


	8. Chapter 8

"Olly! Wake up!" A high pitched voice interrupted my light slumber, and I fell to the floor. I looked around; I was in the basement, directly in front of the TV, with a chair just barely standing up behind me. The clock said it was around five in the morning. I groaned.

"You fell asleep, Bunny!" Pinkie laughed, "You slept down here aaaalll night! Twilight said not to wake you up."

"It's an hour before my alarm," I grumbled. While I usually didn't sleep much to begin with, waking up before I was ready tended to irk me. My brain liked to wake up around seven. Not five, "Why are we up?"

"Becaaause!" Pinkie cheered, "It's the first day of school!"

I raised my eyebrows and rubbed the sleep from my eyes slowly. We had called in to enroll the girls in school on Monday, and they ended up taking the test on Friday. Surprisingly, everypony had passed. While some may have passed by the skin on their teeth, they had all been given permission to enter the International Academy. This was honestly a huge shock to me. Even some kids who passed the test weren't given permission, since the school only allowed a certain amount of people. But apparently, enough juniors had dropped out, so there was space for all of them.

I walked slowly up the stairs, Pinkie close on my heels. Pain shot up my right leg every time I took a step, but I tried not to let it show. Pinkie of all people didn't need to be worrying about me. I glanced back, and realized that Pinkie actually had one of her arms held out, apparently ready to catch me. I sighed and continued my way up. All the girls were up and dressed. Applejack was in the kitchen making breakfast, and then she turned to me.

"Mornin' sugarcube!" she cheered.

"Morning," I sighed and dragged my feet to the couch, too tired to continue conversation.

"Hey," Twilight approached me, "Sorry we didn't wake you up last night. I just… well…"

"It's fine," I yawned, "Not the first time I've tried to sleep in the basement. Surprised I didn't wake myself up, honestly."

"Wow… I can't believe I'm saying this, but you look even more tired than normal," she said, concerned.

"It's an hour before my alarm," I grumbled, burying my face into the couch cushions. I grumbled a few more things that were muffled, and Twilight sat at the edge of the couch.

"You were the one who suggested waking up early," she said softly, "You wanted us to try to pick our classes before we left…"

"I meant that I would actually wake up on time," I grumbled again, "and not stay there staring at the ceiling until six thirty."

"Olly!" Rainbow Dash shouted from the table, "Do they have a gym class at your school?"

I flinched, "Yea… but sophomores only. You're a year too old."

"Aw man…" she pouted.

I got up from my spot on the couch, landing squarely on my right foot. After the incident with Rarity, I wanted to try really hard to hide it. I know Rarity said she wanted me to let them help, but I just didn't feel right doing that. I hid the pain in my face as well as I could.

"Don't worry," I said in a deeper voice than normal, "We'll try to sign you up for a sport or something. There are a lot of things. Let's try to get settled into school first, though."

"Oh, fine," she pouted again, tapping her foot impatiently.

"Olly!" Rarity shouted from the hallway. I turned to see her with a curling iron in her hair and panic in her eyes, "Your hair is a mess! Are those the same clothes you wore yesterday! No, no, that won't do! We'll never make it on time."

"Chill out, Mom," I laughed sarcastically, "I usually can get ready in five minutes. We're an hour ahead of schedule."

Even after I said this, she was ushering me toward the staircase to my room. I laughed and went along with it, until she stopped in her track at the foot of the first step. I raised an eyebrow at her as she seemed to be in debate with herself.

"Uh… okay," I cautiously made my way out of her grip and began walking up the stairs. She followed close behind, in a similar fashion Pinkie had done. I groaned.

"Rarity, I'm fine," I sighed, "Really, it doesn't hurt that much anymore."

She had an almost pained look on her face as I took another step, "Are you quite sure?"

"Yes," I laughed, "Don't wo-"

I stopped myself; the last time I told Rarity not to worry about me, she seemed to get pretty offended. I swallowed my words, "its fine. I'm fine."

With that, I hastily made my way up the stairs, making sure to keep my eyes forward, and not give Rarity any hint that I was in pain.

* * *

To my left, Twilight was nearly hyperventilating. I rolled my eyes and put a hand on her shoulder, "You don't need to be nervous, Twi. It's your first day. They're going to take an easy on you."

She looked at me with worried eyes, "Do you think I studied the human world enough? What if I blow it? What if one of us blows it?"

I blinked, and them put on a smile, "Don't worry; you'll have people to help you. Kendall will be there, and there's a few of my friends who'll just be able to tell since they watch the show. Everything's going to be fine."

We all walked up to the bus stop, which was a vacant parking lot. Since we were ahead of schedule, we decided to leave a little early. I sat down on a curb and opened my backpack.

"Okay," I announced, "Let's go over the schedules again. All of you except Twilight and Rarity are taking math studies… You two are taking SL Math."

"Are we allowed to skip up to HL later in the year," Twilight asked confidently. I rolled my eyes.

"Maybe, but I would bet more on next year." Her shoulders seemed to slump.

"All of you are taking HL literature," I continued, "Dash and Rarity are taking Physics, Twi and Pinkie are taking Chemistry, Shy and AJ are taking Bio…"

"And… um… I'll be able to… opt out of dissecting?" Fluttershy asked nervously. I calmly nodded as I continued to look over the schedules.

"If anything, just stay home from school that day," I absentmindedly replied, "Anyway, everypony's taking Theory of Knowledge, HL History, and U.S. Government. We agreed that Twi and AJ would take Spanish, Rarity and Shy would take French, and Dash and Pinkie would take German. That just leaves your group six... which is up to you"

"I looked it over," Twilight nodded, "Since you said taking a second science is highly unlikely, I'd like to take Economics."

"Econ?" I raised my eyebrows, and then got over my initial shock. This was Twilight, "Okay, Twi's taking Econ. Anyone else?"

"I'll me taking Art," Rarity beamed, and Fluttershy nodded in agreement.

"Okay, Rarity and Shy take art… that leaves Pinkie, Dash, and AJ."

"I dunno, sugarcube," Applejack sighed, "What're the options again?"

"Other than Econ and Art… you can take another language, but I don't suggest that. You can take theater, choir, psychology, product team…"

"Product team?" Dash cocked her head to the side.

"It's basically a study hall," I explained, "I usually use it to write fanfiction."

"What's 'fanfiction'?" Twilight perked up. I blushed a bit and tried to change the subject.

"Never mind. Any ideas?" I asked Applejack desperately. She seemed to think for a little bit, and then nodded to herself.

"Psychology," she decided, "I wanna' learn more 'bout this world an' such, so that seems good to me."

"Okey dokey," I agreed, "Dash? Pinkie?"

"Theater!" Pinkie nearly sang. Rainbow Dash just kind of shrugged; obviously unsure of which class suited her interests.

"You know… if you had Mrs. Broski for Product Team, I bet if you asked her really nicely she'd let you run the track during class. She doubles as the P.E. teacher."

Her eyes lit up a bit at this, and she decided on taking Product Team. I smiled and checked that off on her schedule, "Okay, then we're all set!"

At this, Twilight began hyperventilating again. I rolled my eyes and patted her shoulder, "its okay, Twi. This is gonna be easy."

Just then, Kendall pulled into the parking lot in her yellow sports car. I rolled my eyes as everypony gawked in awe. Kendall then quickly jumped out from the driver's seat and landed squarely in front of us.

"Quick!" she shouted, "What're your names!"

"Tara"

"Jaclyn"

"Robin?"

"Ruby"

"Promise!"

"Fawn…"

Everypony said their names respectively, and I nodded in approval. Honestly, remembering their names is what I had been most worried about. It was extremely hard for me to see them as anything besides their pony names, but I was sure I could get it down. And I was absolutely positive all my other friends could do. It's not the first time they've done something like this.

"Right, so whenever you see eachother at school, you have to use THOSE names," I emphasized, "And I'll have to call you by those names as well."

They all nodded in understanding, and before we knew it, the bus was pulling into the parking lot. I felt myself getting a little nervous. I look a deep breath and took a nervous glance at Kendall, who just offered a nervous smile in return. The bus stopped and everyone got out of their cars and hopped on. Luckily, our bus didn't consist of very many people. We all strode toward the back of the bus, and I took my normal seat. Applejack cautiously sat next to me, Twilight sat next to Kendall, and the other four took seats across from us.

Ryan stepped onto the bus a little later than everyone else, and seemed surprised to see someone taking up the space next to me. It took him a second, but after looking over the six girls a couple times, his eyebrows seemed to rise in recognition.

"H-hey, Ryan," I stuttered with a nervous smile on my face, "These are the new kids I was talking about…"

He simply blinked, unsure of what to say. I cleared my throat and began again, "This is Tara, Jackie, Fawn, Ruby, Robin, and Promise."

He then gave me a very strange look; one that seemed to say 'Really?' in a disapproving tone. He took the seat directly in front of Rarity and Shy, and turned to them.

"I'm Ryan," he seemed to sigh, "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone."

Twilight then turned to me, seeming to panic a bit. I motioned for her to take a deep breath and then I smiled at her, "He's almost as big of a fan of the show as I am. I knew he was going to notice right away."

Another girl, Gabby, came shortly after and took the seat next to Ryan. Gabby was a pretty good friend of ours, with super curly, dark hair and a very wide smile. She looked around the bus and smiled, not seeming to show any signs of recognition.

"Are these the new kids?" Gabby asked excitedly, "I heard they were coming, but I was like 'why would there be six at one time?'"

Apparently, Pinkie Pie took this as her cue, because she quickly jumped up from her seat and started waving at Gabby, "Hi! I'm Promise!"

Gabby's eyes seemed to widen a bit, and then she simply laughed, "Sorry, you just reminded me of something."

I muffled a laugh, and Twilight seemed to stare down at me disapprovingly. I shook my head and pointed out the Pinkie Pie pin on Gabby's backpack. Twilight's eyes seemed to widen a bit, which only made me laugh even harder. I was a little tempted to tell Gabby, but I decided against it. I had to start acting like they weren't ponies, and I'd start with Gabby.

"I really like your hair," Gabby nodded at Rainbow Dash, who awkwardly nodded thanks in reply. I mentally hit myself for not realizing the details of their hair. They all had distinct hairstyles that obviously mirrored that of the show. However, Gabby didn't seem to notice that much and she brought up another topic to Kendall.

The bus ride was a bit awkward, but surprisingly normal for us. Kendall, Gabby, Ryan, and I talked amongst ourselves as we did every morning bus ride, and the girls perked up with their own comments and questions every once and a while. Things just seemed natural, and that was the most relieving thing ever.

"AAAand we're here!" I announced enthusiastically as the bus pulled up in front of the school. All the girls looked out the window in awe, and I marched forward with my backpack in hand.

"Bye, have a good day," the bus driver said to each of us as we walked past her and out the door.

"She's a nice woman," Rarity mused as she helped me down the step.

"You hurt your foot again?" the bus driver sarcastically moaned, obviously noticing me hopping on one foot down the small staircase.

"It's not as big of a deal," I laughed, "No broken bones. It'll be fine in a few days."

"Thank goodness for that," the bus driver laughed and shut the doors behind me.

I pulled my arm away from Rarity's and began marching happily toward the front doors. It was something I did every day. Even though I wasn't a huge fan of school, I always tried to be super optimistic about it. At least while everyone else was around.

The school was relatively small; with one floor and it was about as wide as a football field. Since not too many students were allowed in, we didn't need too much space. We shared half of the building with another public high school. We got one half; the other school's freshmen got the other. The school was made up of light tan bricks and a bright red roof. A banner that said "The International Academy" was strung up next to the front doors.

"Wow, this is bigger than the schools in Equestria," Fluttershy said in awe.

"Yea, that's because it has to hold more students," I explained, "After all, none of us are allowed to stop attending till the twelfth grade."

Twilight shot us a stern look as if to tell us not to blow their cover. I rolled my eyes a bit and pushed through the doors. My automatic reaction was to go through with my normal routine: walk past my locker without paying attention, drop of my stuff at my first class, and then sit in the main hallway with my couple friends. I started to do just that at first, but then I remembered there were six new kids I had to take care of.

"Okay!" I suddenly shot back into action, "We need to go to the office and turn these in, and then they'll give us your schedules. Today's a B-day."

"Huh? B-Day?" Twilight asked nervously. I felt like I had been struck by lightning; I forgot to explain block scheduling. Kendall seemed disappointed and decided to explain herself.

"We have eight classes total, but we only take four classes a day. Your first four classes are on A-day, and the other four are on B-day. They rotate every day."

"R-right," I perked up after my initial shock, "Today is a B-day, so you have your last four classes."

It took a second for them to process this new piece of information, but they nodded all the same. We then strolled into the office, the class forms in hand. I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw the counselor's office door open, and I felt my heart start to beat a little faster.

"Olly? Ya'll okay?" Applejack asked in a concerned voice.

"Y-yea," I stuttered, "I just… I just realized we'd have to talk to the counselor… and um…"

Kendall seemed to pick up on my nervousness, and she smiled a bit, "I'll take care of it. Don't worry about it. You go do your thing; we'll meet you after we're done."

"Really?" I asked hopefully.

"Get outta here, kid," she laughed.

I thanked her and said goodbye to the six girls. With Kendall taking care of their schedules, I was free to go about my normal routine. I was a little nervous about how Kendall would explain the situation, but I trusted her enough to not say too much.

"Heyy Olly!" one of my newer friends, Brianna, shouted. She was a freshman, and I had kinda taken her in as my protégée.

"Hey Bri," I smiled, sitting down next to her and allowing her to rest on my shoulder. Something different about our school than the majority of others was that everyone tended to be a little more touchy. We all liked to hug and cuddle and we didn't care what it looked like to other people. Everyone hugged everyone.

"Did you hear about the six new girls?" I asked her, "They're all in the office right now. They're good friends of mine."

"Six?" she said in laughter, "That's insane! Six new kids on one day?"

I sighed, I had a feeling this would become an issue, "They're all related. They just moved into my neighborhood, and I told them about this school."

"And the school let all six of them in?"

"They agreed as long as all of them passed the test," I explained, "Which they all did, so here they are."

As if on cue, Kendall and all six girls walked over to us, along with another freshman named Erin.

"Hey guys," I smiled, "This is Brianna and Erin."

"Hello!" Brianna shouted enthusiastically as she jumped up to greet them.

"Whoa, I LOVE your hair," Erin complimented Rainbow Dash happily. I smiled, things were going really well.

"Thanks," Rainbow replied awkwardly, "I'm Robin."

"OOOh! And I'm Promise!" Pinkie shouted.

"So," I turned to Twilight, "What're your schedules like?"

"Rarity and I have literature with Mrs. Demay first," she replied, "Kendall said she had that class as well."

"Good! Liz also has that class, so you guys should be set."

"I have Spanish," Applejack scratched her said, "With… Watkins?"

"Oh," I flinched, "Small warning; he can be a little overbearing. He's… loud. And if you don't understand his humor, he can seem kinda mean. But don't worry, my friend Riley is in that class, so you should be okay."

"We… have American History first," Fluttershy muttered, gesturing to Pinkie Pie who just nodded excitedly.

"Really?" I raised an eyebrow, "Are they having you take some sophomore classes?"

"Yea," Kendall explained, "You know, since they have no background in American History. But they're taking a senior lit class… it's a little complicated."

"Okay, that's cool," I nodded, "So you have that class with Ryan and my girlfriend."

"I'll show you where it is," Ryan announced, probably wanting to drop his things off in his classroom. Without another word, he walked off toward the history room with Shy and Pinkie.

"Rainbow?" I asked happily, "What class do you have?"

"Uh… Product Team…," she read her schedule uncertainly.

"Oh!" I smiled, "That's what I've got!"

Rainbow Dash's eyes seemed to light up, and this made me chuckle a bit. It was cool to see her excited about something.

"Didn't you say you used that class for…?"

I interrupted her, not wanting to get back on the topic of 'fanfiction', "I'm glad to have Rainbow in there. The class is always so quiet. I have one other friend in there, but we don't talk during that class."

"Why ever not?" Rarity raised her eyebrows.

"I dunno," I shrugged, "I guess since the class is so quiet, we tend to be quiet. Plus, we both like to listen to music."

We all talked amongst ourselves for a short little while, and then we made our way to our classrooms. I had talked to Riley about the situation, and she agreed that she'd be in charge of Applejack for the day. That left each of us in charge of some of the girls, which actually worked out pretty well.

Later in the day, the majority of us met in the lunch room. Unfortunately, not all of us had the same lunch. I had A-lunch on both days, as did Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy. Twilight had B-lunch on B-days and A-lunch on A-days, as did Rarity and Pinkie Pie. It was kind of relieving that they each had at least two other ponies with them.

"Okay… now to figure out the table…"

"Whad'ya mean, sugarcube?" Applejack walked up behind me.

"Well, we always like to sit at the same table, but so do a couple other people. There's not really room for all of us."

"Well, we COULD just move," Rainbow Dash added. I dramatically cringed at the suggestion and hugged my seat at my table. I had been the number one advocate for sitting at the same table, and I wasn't going to give it us without an imaginary fight.

"Olly," Ryan rolled his eyes, "We don't really have a choice here."

"B-but we'll be too close to a different wall…"

For some reason, Rainbow Dash must've taken me seriously, because she grabbed my risk and began dragging me towards an empty table. I burst out laughing as I attempted to break from her hold.

Once we got to the other table, our normal friends began coming and taking their places. There was an empty space next to me, which I reluctantly wouldn't allow anypony to take. They were confused, but they went with it. Suddenly, a small bag of carrots were placed in front of me, and I smiled.

"Thanks," I smiled as my girlfriend sat down next to me.

She smiled at me and then looked at the peculiar girls sitting at the table with us, "Oh, you guys are some of the new kids, right? I'm Julia."

"Howdy," Applejack tipped her hat, which she surprisingly hadn't gotten in trouble for wearing during school hours.

Julia seemed to space out for a second, blinking a bit. Then she simply shrugged and took her seat next to me. I started to eat the carrots she had given me, throwing the one's that weren't sweet back into the bag.

"S-so," Fluttershy started, "O-Olly says you're… a vegetarian?"

I raised an eyebrow; I hadn't told them my girlfriend's name or what she looked like. I had just mentioned her and Liz a couple of times. I wondered how Fluttershy had figured it out, and then decided to ignore it.

"Yea!" Julia replied excitedly, "Why? Are you?"

"Y-yes…"

"All of us are," Applejack added, "Grew up that way."

"Oh, you're so lucky," Julia nodded, "I only started a couple years ago. I wish I had been raised that way."

"Yea, well where we come from, vegetarians are pretty common," Rainbow Dash tried to join in.

The other two flinched and glanced over at her, as if she had just given everything away. I simply shrugged and waited for the conversation to play out.

"That's really cool," Julia marveled.

I watched as the four casually talked about each other's interests. I couldn't tell why, but it was really important to me that they liked Julia and vise versa. I was a bit lost in thought, so I nearly missed Julia going on a rant about Social Justice. I was glad I caught it, because it was always something I kind of liked to listen to.

"And it's just really shitty and… yea," Julia finished awkwardly. I couldn't help but smile a little bit.

"Well, I completely agree with ya," Applejack nodded, "Some people jus' can't leave people alone."

I nodded at this and continued to eat my carrots. Julia slid a juice box over to me, and I picked it up and looked at the back.

"Hey Robin," I called, reading the back of the box, "How do you make a strawberry shake?"

"What?" Rainbow retracted.

"You put it in the freezer," I read the answer to the joke. She stared at me in confusion for a while, so I shrugged and stabbed the little plastic straw into the foil. After that, I pulled out the straw and drank it like a shot.

"What in the hay?" Applejack raised an eyebrow.

"It's too small to drink with the straw," I explained, "This way's more fun."

"I swear you remind me of Promise sometimes," Rainbow Dash snickered, and Fluttershy slowly grinned.

"Good," I laughed.

Things were going along rather smoothly for once. Ryan and I talked about the future talent show coming up, and Julia stood up every so often to talk to some friends across the lunch room. The three girls seemed to be getting the hang of how school worked, so I didn't bother keeping too close of an eye on them. Before I knew it, lunch was over. We only had two classes left before the end of the day.

"I love B-days," I nearly sang as I strode down the hallway.

"Are they easier?" Rainbow Dash asked at my side.

"For me," I replied, "I don't know about you. Depends on which classes you like and don't like. What do you have next?"

"Physics. But the counselor guy said I have to sit in on the sophomore class for a few weeks so I can catch up on a few things."

"Sweet, Julia, Ryan, and I have that class too." I pumped a fist.

"Rad, so does Twilight." She joined in on my excitement.

We made our way to the classroom and took our seats. To my surprise, Rainbow Dash took to physics with extreme ease. I assumed it had something to do with flying, but I was still pretty impressed.

After Physics, Twilight and I made our way across the hall to the Chemistry We had the same teacher as we did in Physics, Mr. Swanson, who was personally my favorite teacher in the school. We were a lot alike, and we were interested in pretty much all the same things. The only problem was that he was a long term substitute.

"Hi again, Swanzo," I said coolly, walking into the room with Twilight.

"Hey Olly and uh…," he started, "Don't tell me, I got this. Starts with a T… Tara."

"That's it," Twilight smiled, taking a seat in the front row next to me.

Twilight and I bore through our last class together. I could tell she was getting a bit exhausted, so I helped her get through it the best I could. It was going okay at first, but towards the end of the day, I started to get shaky.

"Olly?" she asked me, "You okay?"

"Y-yea," I stuttered. I didn't feel the need to say anymore.

Swanson glanced up at me and must've noticed, so he slowly nodded at me and got back to whatever he was working on. I put a hand over my mouth and tried to breathe more slowly. Twilight stared at me with a concerned look on her face, but I completely ignored it. The shaking became too much for me to handle, so I calmly stood up and walked out of the room and to the bathroom.

"Bunny!" I heard a peppy voice from behind me. I turned to see none other than Pinkie Pie hopping through the hallways behind me.

"P-Pinkie," I stuttered, "Wh-what… what are you-"

"I saw you run out of class, silly!" she laughed, "And that's not my naaaame!"

"P-Pink-… I mean, Promise… Y-you need to go b-back to class," I tried to stutter out under my shaking.

"Awwwww why? Don't you need to go back to class?" she pouted.

"I-I'll go back in a few minutes, okay?"

I tried to continue my way to the bathroom, but she kept on following behind me. It made me angry; could she tell something was going on? The thought stressed me out even more, and the shaking got more intense. Suddenly, my knees gave out from under me. I fell to the ground and tried to calm down my breathing.

"O-Olly?" Pinkie sounded completely panicked.

"I-I'm okay," I panted, "I'm g-gonna be okay."

I felt someone by my side, and I jumped slightly. I looked up to see Pinkie's arms wrapped tightly around me in a panicked hug.

"P-Pinkie…"

"That's not my name… bunny," Pinkie kind of whispered. I could tell she was trying to be a little quieter for my sake, but she was having a little bit of trouble with it. I was going to start arguing with her, but something told me not to. The way she was trying so hard made me want to let her. It was almost touching. I mentally sighed and started to take long, deep breaths. Suddenly, something happened that I didn't expect at all.

"Come on every…body smile, smile, smile, fill my heart up with sunshine, sunshine," she started to sing as softly as her personality would let her.

"P-Pinkie…?"

"A-all I really need's a smile, smile, smile, from these happy friends of mine."

"…You can say pony… Pinkie Pie," I decided, "No one's around."

Pinkie seemed to grin down at me a bit, and she began singing again, "Come on everypony smile, smile, smile. Fill my heart up with sunshine, sunshine. All I really need's a smile, smile, smile, from these happy friends of miiine."

Surprisingly, I felt my heart beginning to slow down. I took a long, deep breath, and I began to slide away from her hug. She seemed to whine a little bit at this, but after a bit of hesitation, she let me go.

"What happened just now, bunny?" she asked curiously.

"…a panic attack," I sighed, "I have this ADHD medication that I take… and when it starts to wear off I sometimes get panic attacks."

"Oh… what does that feel like?"

"Well," I tried to explain, "It starts when my heart starts beating really fast. Like… I can feel it in my ears. Then my hands start shaking a lot and I feel like I can't breathe."

All of a sudden, her arms around me again, "That sounds like such a scary feeling, bunny!"

I hugged her back a little bit, "It is, but I'm usually really good at pretending it isn't."

She looked up at me in shock, and then smiled a bit, "I love playing pretend! At least that makes the scary feeling feel a little better, right?"

I chuckled, "Right."

After this, we made our way back to class and got through the rest of the day. Before I knew it, it was the end of the day, and the three of us were making our way back to our meeting spot by the front door. Soon enough, Rainbow, Shy, AJ, and Rarity were all making their way towards us.

"Okay," I announced, "Back to the bus!"

As it turned out, only Kendall, myself, and the girls were riding the bus in the afternoon that day. Because of this, it was an abnormally casual bus ride. We all talked about the day, asked them questions about their first day of school. And groaned about homework. Sure enough, we were home before we could even realize what happened.

"See ya, Kendall!" I waved as Kendall turned the corner towards her house. From there, it was just me and the six girls. For some reason, though, it was awkwardly silent.

"Guys?" I raised an eyebrow, "You okay?"

"Y-yes," Rarity started, "Just… a bit nervous, darling."

"Nervous? Why?"

"Well, because you always seem to get hurt on this walk home…"

I sighed, "Don't worry, we're not going that way."

"Huh?" Twilight asked, "There's another way home?"

"Yea," I shook my head, "I don't like to walk down that way, believe me. The day I met you guys… well it was about to rain. And since that way is shorter I thought, well that I could outrun them. The second time… I… wasn't exactly paying attention."

"Weren't payin' attention?" Applejack asked.

"Yea…," I sighed again, "I took a wrong turn."

With that, I hastily passed the turn to the shortcut, and continued on the long, blacktop path to my house. The girls walked unsettlingly behind me. It was a pretty long and awkward walk, but we all made it home in about half an hour. As soon as we got inside, Rainbow Dash proceeded to plummet into the couch.

"Sooo tired," she moaned.

"It'll be better tomorrow," I laughed, throwing my backpack to the side, "First day's always tiring. Get through this week, and it'll just be routine."

"I'm hungrier than a parasprite," Applejack sighed as she sat at the counter.

"No problemo, leave it to me," I marched into the kitchen, "Mac and Cheese sound okay?"

"Anything sounds okay to me," Rainbow Dash roared from the couch.

Both Rarity and Fluttershy offered to lend me a hand, but I turned it down and told them to work on their homework.

"If you guys need any help, just let me know!" I yelled downstairs as they ran to talk to eachother about their day. They all agreed and got to work. I shook my head and decided to get lost in my thoughts while cooking dinner. Things were finally starting to get into a normal routine with the girls around.

Maybe them being here with me… would just become normal?


	9. Chapter 9

There was a soft knock on my door, "Olly?"

I let out an aggravated sigh, "Yea, come in."

Applejack calmly let herself into my room and sat in front of me on the floor. It was their third day of school and we had just finished eating, so I made my way up to my room to work on some things.

"How ya doin', sugarcube?" she asked with a small, amused smile on her face.

"Wish I could be better," I grumbled, pushing my guitar off to the side, "How am I supposed to learn this by Friday night?"

"Aw, I'm sure you'll get it. It's gettin' better, I reckon."

"Yea, I guess. But not good enough to be on stage."

About a month ago, Ryan and I had auditioned for the school talent show. We were planning on doing a comedy act in song form, but it involved me playing the guitar. Sure, I had taken guitar a couple years earlier and had minimal knowledge on how to play, but now I had less than two days to get the song down perfectly.

"Ya know," she raised an eyebrow accusingly, "Ya shoulda' been practicin' before this week."

I stuck my tongue out at her, "Well, I'm sorry. I had a little bit of a distraction."

She laughed a bit and stared down at her toes. My features went from amusement to concern as she awkwardly played with her fingers. I motioned for her to sit next to me on the couch, "You okay?"

"Yea, I'm fine I jus'…," she paused for a second, "Well, Pinkie Pie was tellin' us the other day about how… well…"

I sighed, "She told you about the panic attack, huh?"

"Yea…" she stared at her toes.

I shook my head and put a friendly arm around her, "It's not something you need to worry about. Trust me, if it was worse, I wouldn't be here right now."

"Olly," I saw her cheeks begin to turn red, "Could 'ya please stop tellin' me not to worry?"

I was taken back a bit, "Wha…"

She sighed a bit and positioned herself more comfortably under my arm, "It's jus… ever since the first day we've seen ya in pain. But still, ya' done nothin' but be kind to us and help us out. Please, stop tellin' us not to worry. I wanna worry about you."

I blinked a few times, and was instantly reminded of what Rarity had said the other day. Slowly, I nodded. I still didn't understand why she felt like this, but I decided not to question her any further. If there was one thing I knew about Applejack, it was that she knew what she was talking about. She WAS the element of honesty, after all.

"Can I ask ya' somethin'?" she asked suddenly. I nodded to her again.

"Its jus… darn I jus' can't even imagine Applebloom livin' in another home. I mean there's not much I can do about it right now, but if she lived right there…"

I really didn't understand what her question was. I knew she missed Applebloom, but what did this have to do with me?

"I guess what I'm try'na ask is… where yer sister is?"

My eyes widened at this, and I began searching my brain for some kind of careless excuse. That's how I tended to answer the majority of my friends when they asked about this kind of thing. But then it realized it; this was Applejack. She'd be able to tell if it was an excuse.

"W-which one?" I stuttered out.

"Not the one in school," she clarified, "I can understand bein' held up in yer studies."

"Ah…" I twiddled my thumbs, "She… she just kind of moved out. Most people… once they grow up… they move on and buy a house of their own."

"Right," Applejack nodded, "But yer here all alone. Why aren't ya over there? Er… why isn't she here now?"

I chuckled a bit and shook my head, "I wonder that myself, sometimes. She practically raised me. No, that's wrong, she DID raise me. She was more like a mom than anyone. But once we both got older she just… moved out. Had two kids of her own."

Her eyebrows were raised at this, obviously not sure what to say. I knew her situation was similar; raising Applebloom as a mother would since their parents weren't around. I assumed it was a lot for her to take in that my sister would just leave like that.

"It's not like we NEVER see eachother," I continued, "She lives… um… up by the school. We see eachother when the family gets together and things like that…"

"Why'd she hafta' raise you?" she asked, "I thought yer parents were still around…"

"They are," I assured, "But things were a lot like they are now. They go on business trips a lot, sometimes for months at a time. To be honest, they were really busy when I was a little kid. When they weren't traveling, they were either working or out with friends."

She suddenly nodded in understanding, "So that's why…"

"Huh?" I let myself drift away from my thoughts.

"Ya must' a depended on yerself a lot, right?" she asked with a small smile.

"I… I guess so…" I was completely unsure of what to think of this new advancement. It was like she was trying to understand how my brain worked. The thought made me uncomfortable, and I pulled away from her, grabbing my guitar off of the floor. I needed to get this song down before Friday night.

* * *

"Buuuunnyyy!" I heard Pinkie Pie sing, "Someone's at the doooorrr!"

For the past couple hours, I had been working on playing the guitar. While Applejack still sat in my room with me listening, she never brought up the topic of my sister again. It left me to focus on the guitar rather than my thoughts.

"Coming!" I yelled out the door, "Go ahead and get it! It's Ryan!"

"Hey hey!" Ryan greeted suddenly, walking into my bedroom. Apparently, Pinkie Pie didn't see any need to wait for me to give her the okay before answering the door.

"Hey," I groaned, striking a wrong chord.

"You ready to practice?" he smiled.

"I wish," I replied, sliding the guitar off of my lap, "Why is it so hard to play the guitar?"

"Relax, you're good," Applejack reassured, reminding us that she was in the room.

"Yea, right now," I rolled my eyes, "But I can guarantee I'll forget how to play it once I'm on stage."

"That's fine," Ryan shook his head, "It's a comedy act anyway. Just pretend its part of the act."

"I guess so," I yawned.

"Wanna go watch a movie or something?" he suggested.

I nodded at him quietly and the three of us made our way down to the basement, abandoning the guitar on my couch. Ryan happily slid down the stairs while Applejack had an arm around me. I decided that, just this once, I would let her help me out.

"Hello, darlings!" Rarity greeted as we walked toward the living room, "You're guitar is sounding quite a bit better."

"Thanks," I grumbled, still not convinced, "We're gonna watch a movie in the basement. You guys wanna join?"

"That sounds… nice," Fluttershy smiled softly.

"Got any good adventure movies?" Rainbow Dash turned to me.

I grinned a bit, "Well, I may or may not have something extremely similar to Daring Doo… but other than that…"

At this, Rainbow Dash shot up and ran towards the basement, shouting different questions as she ran, "Really? What's it called? How could it be similar to Daring Doo? I thought they only had Daring Doo books in Equestria."

"There's really something similar to Daring Doo?" Twilight raised an eyebrow, walking up next to me.

I nodded, "It's called Indiana Jones. Not the same story, but they do things pretty similarly."

We all made our way downstairs and I put the first Indiana Jones movie into my DVD player. To their surprise, it really was similar to Daring Doo. It was fun watching Rainbow Dash's reactions to all the different events. Who knew Dash could be such a movie geek?

"Wow, I never really got inta' Darin' Doo myself but…" Applejack started.

"Wee! That looks like so much fun!" Pinkie Pie cheered, running around the room as if to copy Indiana Jones's movements.

"Yea, I never really got into Indiana Jones before…"

"Really?" Twilight raised an eyebrow, "Then why do you own the movie?"

"My dad is really into it," I shrugged.

"Oh? That's… that's very interesting…" Fluttershy pondered.

"Hey yea!" Pinkie Pie shouted, bouncing back over to where I was sitting, "You've never told us about your Dad, Bunny!"

Ryan glanced over at me skeptically, to which I shrugged and turned back to the TV, "There's not much to talk about. He's an engineer and he likes Indiana Jones and Basketball. He used to play baseball, but he got hurt too much so he stopped playing. I think he might like to golf too…"

"So he's into sports?" Rainbow Dash seemed to perk up.

"Kind of," I replied, "He's into watching sports, but then again so are the rest of the guys in my family. He doesn't really play sports anymore."

"Oh…" she shied off a bit.

"What about your mom?" Twilight asked, obviously very interested in the topic, "What's she like?"

"Uh…" I scratched my head, "She's a librarian at a middle school… when she's home she watches a LOT of TV… and she has a lot of friends that she works with. They go on vacations together sometimes. Usually to Mexico or something. She tries really hard to be into the new technology like TV and the internet, but she usually just ends up watching cat videos."

"But cat videos are the best!" Ryan interrupted.

"I know," I laughed, "But it's all she does."

"Cat videos?" Fluttershy perked up a bit, a smile spreading across her face. I shook my head.

"A wonderful internet phenomenon," I laughed dramatically, "Where people post videos of their cats doing funny things. These videos are sweeping the nation and getting millions of views."

"What? Why?" Rainbow Dash was completely bewildered.

"Because it's hilarious," Ryan replied laughing, "But your moms gotta be into other things too."

"Besides watching TV? Not really."

"…What about your sisters?" Applejack asked reluctantly.

I flinched and looked over at her with a disappointed look on my face, hoping I wouldn't have to get into this again. She looked down at her feet apologetically, and I sighed.

"The one in collage is a little… different. She's really, REALLY into Disney cartoons. As am I but… I don't think we're into them in the same way. She's… almost obsessed."

"Is that why she has all the dolls in her room?" Pinkie asked.

"Exactly," I nodded, "It's all she thinks about. She's going to art school right now to learn animation, and I think she's going to try to work for them. I'd be more interested in writing for them, myself…"

"…And your other sister?" she pressed on. I sighed audibly and began, "I… don't know too much now, really. She's the manager of a kind of green house store called English Gardens. It's over by school. She used to really like music and things like that… she's pretty easy going."

"You don't know much about your own sister?" Twilight raised an eyebrow. I flinched again.

"Well… no I guess not. Back when she lived here she was always fussing over me and just doing whatever I wanted to do. When she wasn't doing that she was usually just doing school-work."

Applejack nodded, thankfully deciding not to press the matter any further. Everypony else, however, had looks of complete confusion on their faces. Instead of getting more into it, I just continued to watch the movie, casually punching the air along with Pinkie Pie during the action scenes.

To my surprise, the mood had lightened up quite a bit toward the end of the movie, and we decided to watch another.

"These movies are sweet!" Rainbow Dash cheered.

"I have others I think you'd like, too," I smiled, "Like the Lord of the Rings and Star Wars. They're a little bit different, but they're long adventure films like this."

"Can we watch them all tonight?" Rainbow asked me almost childishly. I chuckled.

"No, we have school tomorrow. You guys should get to sleep soon."

Twilight raised an eyebrow at me, "Shouldn't you?"

"W-well yea," I was taken back a bit.

"Hey, my mom's here," Ryan prodded my shoulder, "I'm gonna get going. I'll see you on the bus tomorrow, kay?"

"Okay, gurl," I laughed, "See ya."

With that, Ryan made his way up the stairs and it was just myself and the ponies littered around my basement. I wanted to practice the guitar a little more, but I knew that it would probably keep the others awake. I decided to make my way upstairs as well just so I could sit in my room and think.

I sat on my bed quietly listening to reviews of the new MLP episode. I had to admit, Maud Pie was probably one of my favorite episodes of season four. I was thankful that the others were out on a walk when it came on, because I probably laughed more than I should have. Then again, according to all these reviews, EVERYONE laughed more than they should have.

"Hey, Bunny!" Pinkie shouted, suddenly bursting into the room. I jumped and my computer fell off of my lap and onto the floor.

"Ahh… Hi Pinkie," I replied, attempting to snap myself out of my own confusion.

"Hey, what's that?" she asked, pointing to my computer. Before I could say 'nothing', she dove to the ground and snatched the computer out of my reach. I grimaced, waiting for some sort of sad reaction to what she saw on the screen.

"Hey!" she shouted happily, "That's Maud!"

After getting over my initial shock, I nodded happily, hoping to avoid another emotional situation, "Yea, she was in the new episode on Saturday. It was about the time she visited Ponyville before she went to rock school."

"Ohh yea! I remember that!" she laughed, "We all went to the rock farm and made rock candy necklaces! It was so fun!"

"Do you still have any of those rock candy necklaces?" I asked with a smile.

"Nope!" she announced proudly, "They're all in my tummy!"

I chuckled as she slid the computer back towards me, and I exited out of YouTube, proud of myself for avoiding a catastrophe.

"Is your big sister like Maud?" she asked suddenly.

I thought for a minute, "Kind of… I think. Actually now that you mention it…"

"They both really like one thing, and don't have as many friends as we do! And they're both going to school for the things they really like!"

"Hey yea!" I suddenly realized, "Our sisters are pretty similar…"

"Oh! Oh!" she laughed, "Does that mean WE'RE really similar? Are WE the same people?"

I laughed along with her, "Rainbow Dash said I reminded her of you the other day…"

"Wee! We're like twins! We should throw a twin party!"

"Um… Pinkie?" I heard a soft voice call into the room. I turned to see Fluttershy tiredly peeking in through the crack of the door, "I think… you should let Olly get to bed…"

"Awwwww but Fluttershy, he's not sleeping anyway! We were just about to plan our twin party!" Pinkie pouted.

I shook my head, "Go on, Pinkie. You need to get to sleep anyway. I promise we'll talk more about our 'twin party' tomorrow."

"Pinkie Promise?" she put her hands on her hips.

"Pinkie Promise," I agreed, going through the motions, "Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye."

"Okey dokey lokey…" she sighed, beginning to skip out of the room. I smiled as she skipped past Fluttershy.

"O-Olly… you should really be getting to bed too," Fluttershy came further into the room.

"I will, Flutters," I reassured, "Just let me take care of a few more things."

She seemed reluctant, almost like she wanted to continue arguing with me. But then she sighed, and softly closed the door behind her. I shook my head and opened up YouTube once again; racking my brain for where I left off in the video I was watching. I picked up a can of tea that was on my bedside table and gulped the rest of it down. I wasn't even remotely tired; it was going to be a long night.

* * *

"Olly? Hey, Olly...," I heard a familiar voice calling out to me.

"Hmm?" I began to open my eyes. As soon as I realized it wasn't the middle of the night, I shot up in panic, attempting to find the time, "Huh? What?"

"What are you doing down here?" Twilight was looking down at me with a raised eyebrow and a skeptical expression. I looked around in confusion. I was downstairs in the living room sitting up against the back of the couch.

"Huh… I… I dunno," I shrugged, gripping the couch to pull myself up into a standing position, "Man, I don't remember half of last night."

She looked concerned at this, "Do you think you could've been sleep walking?"

"No way," I laughed, "I'm never in a deep enough sleep for that to happen. Must've come down here for some reason and passed out."

I looked over to my side. There were at least four cans of iced tea and two paper plates. I must've just been thinking really deep about something, and wanted to get out of my room.

"Well, it sure looks like you planned to be down here for a while," Twilight pondered, gesturing to the mess I left.

"Meh, I dunno," I shrugged, "I'm gonna go get dressed. Is everyone else awake?"

"Rarity was just waking up when I came downstairs," she confirmed, "I'm sure Pinkie will be up in a few minutes and running around getting everyone else awake."

"Good," I yawned, "I'll start breakfast in a few minutes. How'd you sleep?"

"Pretty well," she nodded, "Being here now seems more natural, so I'm not waking up as much. And I expect to wake up here instead of at home."

"That's good, I think," I grinned, beginning to walk up the stairs. She casually followed behind me.

"How'd you sleep?"

"I don't remember going to sleep," I admitted, "It must've happened when I got downstairs. But as far as I know it was okay."

"Hm… good… I think," she tried to smile weakly.

"Oh hey," I realized once I started walking up the stairs, "Could you go to the counter and get that little blueish bottle?"

"Yea sure," she replied swiftly, "What's in it?"

"Just medications," I yawned again. She quickly made her way back to the kitchen and returned with a clear-blue medicine bottle.

"Nitro… Nitro…glycerin?"

"Yea; Nitroglycerin," I shrugged as she handed the bottle to me.

"What's it for? What does it do?"

"It's heart medication," I calmly explained, "it's to help prevent angina, which is chest pains that come from the heart. Not a huge deal, really. Just helps things along."

As much as I tried to make things seem not so bad, she looked extremely concerned with every word I spoke. I shook my head and began walking up the stairs again to my room to pick out some clothes. Once there, I casually looked out the window only to see…

"You've got to be kidding me," I groaned.

"Wh-what?" Twilight asked, still getting over her shock.

"IT'S FREAKING SNOWING! DAMNIT, I THOUGHT THIS WAS OVER!"

"Uh…" she seemed confused, walking up to the window next to me, "Nope, I guess not. It's defiantly snowing out there."

I growled and buried my face in the couch, "Can't Winter just be over, already? I can't take any more of this polar vortex."

"When's the first day of spring?" she asked casually, "How much longer do we have to wait." I laughed a bit at this.

"It's March twentieth. But the day doesn't influence how the weather changes. We call it the first day of spring, but sometimes it can still feel like winter until the end of April."

She was taken back a bit, "What? Then why would you call it the first day of spring?"

"I think it used to get warm around that time a long time ago," I explained, "But since we can't control the weather at all, there's no real way we can predict when it's going to get warmer."

"I thought the weatherman…" she seemed to be doubting herself.

"Weathermen predict the weather using technology. They're not always right, though. They just give a rough estimate," I tried to explain while pulling a shirt out of my drawer.

She gave me a long, dazed look. I raised an eyebrow and pulled my shirt from the day before off and began putting on the new one.

"Olly," she started, "Why do you always wear white?"

"Huh?" I looked down at my shirt and realized that it was, indeed, pure white, "Uh… I dunno. What do you mean?"

"Well, at first I just thought it was something humans did. Since ponies are usually represented by their coat color, I just assumed humans were represented by a certain color of clothing," she started going on a rant that only could come from Twilight, "But I noticed at school that the majority of students have multiple clothing colors. So… why do you always wear white?"

"Uhh…," I honestly had no idea, "I dunno… I guess I just like the color…?"

That wasn't true. In fact, white was my least favorite color of the mix. I wasn't exactly sure why I didn't like it, but it was last on my list of favorite colors. Maybe I just looked good in it? I wasn't completely positive.

Suddenly, in the distance, I heard some peculiar music. It sounded a bit tropical, but I couldn't tell what it was. That is, until I heard:

"You may call it a crash I'd call it a fly in here to perform on this deserted island."

"Are you guys listening to brony music?" I asked, bursting out of the room. I looked down to see Rainbow Dash playing with my cell phone.

"What's this song about?" she called up to me, not taking her eyes off of the phone.

"It's about DJ-PON3 and Octavia."

"Octavia?"

"The cello player. I'm not sure if they're actually good friends in Equestria, but everyone here seems to think they are," I sighed, pulling out a white and blue hoodie with Vinyl's cute mark on the sleeve. I shook my head at the irony. Unable to convince Rainbow to turn the music off, I decided to just go along with it.

"One, two, three, Tavi dance with me. Though we're lost at sea, depressed is just no way to be," I sang quietly as I fixed my hair in the mirror. Suddenly, Fluttershy walked calmly out of her bedroom. Out of flirtatious instinct, I grabbed her hands and we began sloppily waltzing across the hallway.

"Come on let's take things slow. Help is on the way I know, so we've nowhere to go!" I sang happily, dragging Fluttershy in my dance.

After getting over her surprise, she giggled a bit at my attempted to rap the lines of the song as perfectly as the song. Rainbow Dash glanced up at us, and began chuckling as well. She called Applejack over and instantly started the song over, turning up the volume. Rarity poked her head out of her room to see what the commotion was, which allowed be to drag her into my fun as well. At this point, AJ, Dash, and Twilight were all in hysterics, watching me force the other two to dance along with me.

"Ohh! I wanna play too! I wanna play too!" Pinkie cheered, bursting out of her room.

As we danced, I grabbed all the things I needed for school. The others took the hint and did so as well, and then we all danced out the door.

In Product Team class, I happily listened to the same song while working on a recent story I had been writing. It was about a young kid simply living a complicated life in the city of Detroit. I admit, it was based a bit off of my own life years before, but there were many changes made in order to make the story flow better. Rainbow Dash was sitting next to me, apparently working on some sort of math homework. We weren't in the same class, since we were technically in different grades, so usually I wouldn't be able to help her. However, she just happened to be in math studies, which worked on elementary school type material at this point.

Just then, the teacher announced that we could leave the classroom. I groaned, wishing my entire day could just be a product team class.

"What's up with you?" Rainbow Dash laughed. I rolled my eyes.

"I have a stupid debate in health class. Man, you don't even know how much I hate working in groups with other people."

"It's not THAT bad," she smirked, "As long as they all know you're awesome."

"I wish they did," I stuck my tongue out, "I got stuck finding statistics. I don't even care about this whole thing. Our group barely even worked on it."

"Oh, well good luck with that," she punched my shoulder before she turned the corner to walk to her next class. Soon, I ran into Kendall in the hallway. She simply ruffled my hair and continued walking, talking to Twilight about something. I glanced back to see Twilight looking a bit solemn, but I decided to ignore it and go on to Health class.

* * *

When I got to the lunchroom, I was surprised to see Applejack sitting alone. Not only that, but she had taken the table that I used to claim before they showed up in this world. She glanced up at me and proudly gestured to my usual seat.

"You're literally the best," I thanked her, happily taking my seat; "This table is the greatest table. Not too close to any walls, but not directly in the middle so we don't get attention. Perfect table."

She laughed, "Does it really matter that much?"

I shook my head, "I think you guys might need to work on your sarcasm skills. It's a big joke I have. Yea, I prefer this seat and this table, but not for any real particular reason."

She rolled her eyes and began eating her food that she had no doubt bought just before I had entered. I took out a notebook and began writing down whatever drabble came to my mind. The ponies, especially Applejack, had begun to learn the extent of my social skills. Some days, I would talk non-stop about whatever. However, most of the time I was satisfied just being around people. I didn't really find it necessary to be speaking about something all the time. The quiet was really nice, and I liked being around people at the same time.

"Heeeyy," Ryan walked up to us, ruining my quiet environment. I didn't let it show and I smiled up at him.

"Eyy baby, what's happenin'?" I said in a mocking tone. He laughed and took his usual seat across from me.

"Help is on its way I know, so we've nowhere to go," I sang to myself as I put my notebook away. I noticed Ryan smiling at this, and I stuck my tongue out at him.

"It's just stuck in my head, man. Robin was playing it this morning, and I just couldn't help it." He laughed and took a bite of his food just as Rainbow Dash approached the table along with Fluttershy. I was glad to see them adjusting to school so well and so quickly. I was afraid it was be extremely difficult since they had no doubt not attended school in several years. But they seemed to be getting the hang of it, so I figured there wasn't much to worry about.

"I was listening to some other songs on your phone this morning, too," Rainbow Dash brought up again, "There was this one song called… uh… Rainbow Factory?"

I nearly choked on my juice box and looked back up at her, hoping that she wouldn't understand what the song was talking about.

"I couldn't really figure out some of the words," she explained, "But it was talking about Cloudsdale… and the chorus was kind of weird."

I looked over to see Ryan practically falling out of his seat from laughter. I sighed and looked back over at the rainbow haired girl, a really tired expression on my face.

"Ask me before you go through my music," I sighed, "There's some things on there that you shouldn't be listening to… including that one."

"O-oh?" she was taken back for a second, but then she regained her cool, "It can't be so tough that I can't handle it. It was a cool song."

"The meaning is terrible," I explained awkwardly, "You can listen to the song I guess… but try not to pay attention to the lyrics."

I could tell she was about to strike back with another comment, but the look on my face told her that I was serious about this one, so she shut up. Soon after this, a small bag of carrots was placed in front of me, and Julia took her place at the table.

"Hiii," she said in a voice that would sound awkward to some, but I just found it cute.

"Hey," I laughed, beginning to go through my carrots as I usually did.

"You're eatin' those carrots real weird," she laughed as I took a bite out of one as if it were an apple. I shrugged and continued, not really sure how to reply.

"Hey, hey Olly, guess what," Ryan had a smirk on his face. I raised an eyebrow to answer him, and he pulled a large, red apple out of his bag, "Apples!"

As soon as he realized he made not only a Friendship is Witchcraft reference, but one that was mocking Applejack, he threw a hand over his mouth. I lost control of my laughter and literally fell off of my seat.

"Dude, I know you think that's funny but damn," Julia laughed a bit along with me. That's when I realized she still didn't realize that the girls were from Equestria, which honestly just made me laugh even harder.

"Um… I don't… understand the joke," Fluttershy began to shy into her hair. I shook my head and lifted myself back onto my seat, "Don't worry, it's a terrible joke. I shouldn't have laughed so hard."

"Wait… it's a pony thing, right?" Julia tried to clarify with me.

I blushed and put my face in my hands, "Yea, yea it's a pony thing."

Ryan began laughing himself now at the awkwardness of the situation. I watched to see if Applejack would have a reaction, but she still just had a confused look planted on her face. Suddenly, I heard the word 'apples' in a similar tone coming from Julia.

"Apples! Apples! Buy some apples!"

"Dude!" I shouted, putting my hand over her mouth, "Dude, shut up!" This time, it was Ryan's turn to fall out of his seat laughing, while the girl's expressions didn't change whatsoever. I was incredibly glad Twilight wasn't in this lunch, or she would've gotten the joke by now.

"Oh!" Julia shouted, pushing my hand away from her mouth, "Wanna know why Liz is literal Applejack?"

Ryan only laughed harder, and I wanted to bang my head on the table, "Can it wait? This is awful timing."

"Wait… what?" Applejack was beginning to realize.

By some great miracle, people began standing up to leave the lunchroom, meaning lunch was over. I took a breath of relief, grabbed Julia's hand, and ran straight out of the doors ahead of everybody. She laughed as I pulled her along behind me.

"What's up?" she asked half in curiosity half in laughter. I shook my head, "I'll explain later, okay? Not with so many people around."

"Okay?" she seemed the tiniest bit concerned, but shrugged it off as soon as we entered the physics room, and she ran over to talk to our friend Brooke about something or other. Shortly after, Rainbow Dash walked into the room with a completely bewildered look on her face.

"Dude," she walked up to me, "What was that about?"

"She was out of line," I chuckled to myself, "I'll explain it to you later, but I think I might have to tell her about you guys."

"What? Why?"

"Because she made a ponies joke," I sighed, "And if she knew it would keep her from going out of line. Plus, she's going to be asking me about why I dragged her out of there and why Ryan and I were laughing so hard."

"Oh…"

"Don't worry," I reassured, "She's my girlfriend. She was probably going to find out eventually; especially since you guys are living at my place."

"Oh, okay cool," she replied simply. But for some reason, I could still sense a little tenseness in the air between us. I raised my eyebrows, attempting to get her to speak what was on her mind.

"So… what was the joke about? I mean, what did it mean?"

"Oh," I chuckled a bit, "It's really not a HUGE deal. This guy on YouTube makes videos dubbing over the show, and it's a joke from that. It's basically talking about AJ's apple obsession."

"Really?" she seemed confused by this. I couldn't say I blamed her; Applejack being obsessed with apples was just a given. She ran an apple farm, and her cutie mark was apples. Since they were friends, Dash probably just saw it as natural.

"Like I said," I sighed, "It's not a very good joke. We take it a bit farther that most people."

"And what was Julia about to…"

"A worse joke," I laughed, "She told me it before. See, her sister Liz works at an apple orchard close to home… and Liz really likes apple cider. So she was just making a joke about how Liz and AJ could be the same person."

"Oh hey!" she seemed more confident now, "I get that one!"

I nodded in accomplishment and walked to sit down in my place next to Julia. A little later, Twilight and Mr. Swanson walked in around the same time. I threw a thumbs-up at Mr. Swanson, who shot one back in reply.

"Hey, Olly!" Twilight sounded a bit excited, running up to my desk.

"Yea, Tara?" I was a bit confused, which caused me to almost say Twilight instead of Tara. Thankfully, I caught myself before I got passed the letter 'T'.

"I was talking to the teacher," she went on excitedly, "He said we're going to start a lab in Chemistry!"

"Greeaaat," I rolled my eyes, suddenly dreading my next class.

"What's the matter?" she suddenly sounded more disappointed. I shrugged, as to not make her feel bad about getting excited.

"I like the LAB part… but we always have to do labs in groups," I cringed a bit, "I'm not the kind of person who likes working with other people; especially when it's a class like that, where not many of my friends are in it."

She shot me a disapproving look, but then smiled, "Are you forgetting about Promise and I?"

A relieved grin spread across my face, "Oh yea! Thank goodness. The only friend I had in that class before you guys was Nic, and he usually dragged me along into a group of his friends."

"Well, you don't have to worry about that this time," she winked at me and walked across the room to her seat next to Rainbow Dash.

* * *

In Chemistry class, Twilight had taken it upon herself to do the majority of the lab work, leaving myself and Pinkie Pie to sit back and wonder about the work. I had a green composition notebook sloppily lying across my lap, the pages filled with messy, unfinished equations and questionable data. On the bottom of the page, there were a few lines to a new song I was writing.

"What'chya doin Olly?" Pinkie asked with an innocent grin. I shrugged.

"Working on a song," I sighed, "It's like I know exactly what I want to write down, but it's not coming out on paper."

Normally, this is the point where Twilight would intervene, talking about how we had to focus on the lab and this was no time for singing. But she was so distracted by this apparently complex delusion that she barely even glanced up at us.

"Songs are easy, silly!" Pinkie giggled a bit, "As long as it rhymes!"

I shook my head, "I wish it were that easy. But for songs to get recognized nowadays, they have to mean something… actually, I take that back. If you want to be a GOOD musician and have an actual, meaningful following it has to mean something. Otherwise, you can just write about whatever, put a good beat behind it, and you'll be on most pop stations."

Pinkie seemed a little bewildered by this explanation, and I had to admit that it was confusing even to me. I simply shook my head and glanced back down at my paper, "That's not the kind of musician I'd want to be. I want to make a difference."

Just then, a little light bulb went off in my head, and I scribbled down a couple lines onto the paper.

"I want to be a part of something, I want to know I can try," Pinkie read out loud over my shoulder. I laughed and pushed her face away.

"It's bad luck to look at unfinished projects."

"Awwwww," she whined, sticking her tongue out at me. Suddenly, my hands began to shake and I dropped my pencil. Pinkie's face went from silly to surprise as she raised an eyebrow at me. I quietly shook my head and walked myself out of the room.

I kept a quick pace walking down the hallway, taking deep breaths in counts of fours and hoping for my life that Pinkie didn't follow me out of the room again. I glanced behind me and sighed in relief when I was met with an empty hallway. All I had to do was make it to the bathroom and wait to calm down. I was going to be okay…

"Boo!" I heard a raspy voice shout from behind me. I nearly jumped out of my shoes and my back hit the nearby wall.

"Whoa kid," Rainbow Dash was taken back a bit, "What's up with you?"

I took me a second to comprehend what she was talking about, but then a quickly shook my head and continued my way to the bathroom, "Go back to class, Robin."

"…Is this the thing Pin… Promise was talking about?" she asked in a quieter voice. I said nothing; I just nodded quietly and scurried into the bathroom door. I was breathing heavily and listening to see if she would walk away. The second I heard footsteps, I leaned on one of the sinks and attempted to breathe slowly.

After a while of struggle, I was finally able to calm myself down. I took a step out of the bathroom, only to reveal someone waiting for me. There stood Applejack; a concerned yet strict look planted across her face and Rainbow Dash standing uncomfortably in the background.

"You… you told on me?" I stuttered out without thinking.

Her eyes widened and she put up her hands, "No way! I just mentioned it! She's the one that freaked out!"

"Rainbow," Applejack breathed out, "Let me talk."

"It's 'Robin' here…," Rainbow grumbled quietly.

Applejack shot Rainbow a stern look and then turned her attention back to me, obviously unhappy, "Ya told me this was nothin' to worry about."

"It isn't anything to worry about," I defended myself; "I'm fine. I calmed myself down just fine."

"Yea," she took a breath, "But Robin said you right leaped out of yer skin when she saw you."

"Because she scared me," I rolled my eyes.

"No one would get as scared as you did," Rainbow Dash raised her voice a bit, causing Applejack to shoot her another look.

"I'm sorry I was a little on edge," I was going to say sarcastically at first, but then it turned into an apologetic whisper. Applejack's glare seemed to calm down a bit, and she sighed, bringing her arms to her sides.

"I jus'… wanted to make sure you were okay…" she finally admitted. I grinned a bit at this, while Rainbow rolled her eyes.

"Yea," I smiled, "I'm okay, really. But you should really, really get back to class. Your teacher is going to start wondering…"

"What about your teacher?" Rainbow asked, finally accepting the end of the situation.

I smiled, "It's just Swanson. Plus he expects me to be out here for a while."

* * *

"See ya, kid," Kendall laughed, ruffling my hair before she took the turn to her house. I smiled and continued walking as the girls trailed behind me, talking amongst themselves. I stayed quiet, just enjoying their company and the somewhat warm weather.

"This is so strange," Fluttershy giggled quietly, "It's warm, but there's snow on the ground."

"Yea?" I laughed a bit, "Welcome to Michigan."

"I'd actually like to know more about this location," Twilight sped her walking and landed herself next to me, "I was reading that each state has its own qualities and exports. I want to know about our state."

I nodded slowly, "Michigan is home to the automotive industry. We export a lot of cars and technology and things like that."

"Ah I see… nothing natural?"

I paused for a minute, "…there's apples…"

Applejack's head perked up at this, and I couldn't help but let a chuckle escape my mouth, "We have a lot of apple orchards… especially in rural areas like this one. There's one that my girlfriend's sister works for over in downtown Romeo. Actually, I think there's two over there…"

"Why didn't ya say somethin' before?" Applejack cheered, "I coulda' started workin' weeks ago!"

"You didn't get here that many weeks ago," I laughed, "I was thinking you'd have to adjust to school before we even thought about getting jobs. Besides, the orchards don't work quite the same here."

"Jus' bein' on an Apple farm again would be really nice," AJ reminisced, which caused Twilight to look down at me with pleading eyes.

I was beginning to see a small change in Twilight. As soon as she got adjusted to this world, she was doing everything in her power to help her friends adjust. This meant asking me for a lot of favors and taking a lot of field trips.

"I… guess we could take a trip over there this weekend if you want," I got Twilight's hint.

She seemed to brighten at this, "Really? Yeee-haw!"

"Yaaay!" Pinkie joined in, bouncing up behind her, "AAAApple orchard!"

"Do they sell cider there?" Rainbow Dash asked excitedly. I nodded, and she nearly did a back flip.

"That'll be… nice," Fluttershy said quietly, but I could tell that she was very excited as well. The only one who didn't look completely excited was Rarity.

"I'm sure it'll be a delightful little trip," she grinned quietly.

"There's a ton to do at this orchard," I tried to get her into it, "A lot of activities and things. And if anything, it's really beautiful out there."

She nodded, trying to get into the spirit as well. With that I continued walking with my eyes closed, happy to have something for the girls to look forward to.

"Um… Olly?" I heard a voice call.

I opened my eyes and turned to face Fluttershy with a raised eyebrow. She shied away and then muttered out, "You… you're taking a wrong turn."

My eyes widened and I looked around to see that I was indeed beginning to turn onto the bad side of the neighborhood. I hurriedly made my way back to the path and attempted to walk as far away from that turn as possible. I could tell some of the girls wanted to say something, but they refrained from it.

"Gaah," Rainbow fell onto the couch, "Too… tired… can't… do… homework…"

Applejack proceeded to smack her upside the head, causing everyone in the room to chuckle a bit. I laughed, "I know exactly what you mean."

I walked into the kitchen and started to get dinner ready, but Rarity walked in and pulled a pot out of my hands.

"We'll take care of this tonight, darling," she winked, "You have a talent show to practice for."

"A-are you sure?" I stuttered out, not prepared for this change in routine.

"Don't ya worry yer' head about it," Applejack walked into the kitchen as well, "Get on up to yer' room and work on yer' guitar."

I smiled in thanks at them, and then made my way down the hallway to the stairs. Before I could even begin to start walking up, Pinkie was behind me, ready to catch me if I fell. I sighed, knowing arguing wouldn't get me anywhere.

"Ya know," I started with a sigh, "If you all keep helping me like this, I might just get used to it."

_**Sorry it's been a little longer than a week. See, I usually write this during product team like I stated a while ago. Since I had Spring break recently, I didn't have any product team class. But we're back in school now, so it'll be one chapter a week from now on. **_

_**By the way, just in case anypony didn't know, the song that Rainbow Dash was playing is called 'A Tropical Octav3Animation.' It's a pretty dang good song.**_

_**And since I just so happen to be doing an author's note in this chapter, I'll put my disclaimer here.  
DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN MY LITTLE PONY: FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC OR ANY OF IT'S CHARACTERS. All characters of this show are owned by Hasbro.**_


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